A Spatial Ontology Community of Practice Building the World Wide World Web

SOCoP Primary Objectives Develop & persist an online community of Users, Technologists & Researchers interested in Spatial Ontology Analyze, Develop & Maintain a set of core, common spatial ontologies for the Semantic Web Essentially, we need “Off-The-Shelf Spatial Ontology”!

What’s the Use of Spatial Ontology? All the usual benefits of ontology Increased spatial search capability Integration of spatial datasets Increased interoperability of spatial information Reuse & Repurposing of spatial information Gain explicit knowledge from implicit information Bring the Web closer to Geodata Help Accelerate the World Wide World Web!

…and all the UNUSUAL reasons! 80% of all information contains a location element = integration with nearly every domain! Perhaps one of the fundamental building blocks of the Semantic Web? Maps are a natural form of data integration Abstraction of complex geometric reasoning from users GIS to date mainly focuses on modeling objects; Now need to “fill in” all the relations Go beyond quantitative reasoning; add qualitative

A Picture is worth a thousand features (and the relations between them)

Overload

Spatial brings with it complexity Space = Multidimensional Temporal Spatio-Temporality Processes States Events Spatio-Temporality Positional Accuracy Size Spatial Aggregates Shape Granularity Scale Orientation Vague Regions ….and it’s all inter-related! MereologyTopology

Which brings us to SOCoP A formal CoP potentially aligned under Federal CIO Council’s Best Practices Committee A formal CoP potentially aligned under Federal CIO Council’s Best Practices Committee Federal CIO Council SICoP (use to be here) Best Practices Committee (now we are here)

Come One, Come All! First Meeting is tomorrow Location: NGIT Colshire Building Date: October 12 th, 2006 Time: 10:30 to 12:30 Address: 7575 Colshire Drive, McLean, VA Right across the street from MITRE (  notice qualitative spatial relation)

Agenda Introduce SOCoP Review Draft Charter & Draft Strategic documents Review Best Practices Committee Rules Online Collaboration Tools (semantic wiki) First Steps Discussion

Next Steps Best Practices meeting Monday, 10/16 Best Practices meeting Monday, 10/16 SOCoP to be accepted as formal CoP SOCoP to be accepted as formal CoP Get on the wiki! Get on the wiki! Get a logon and start generating content Get a logon and start generating content Make call for all existing spatial ontologies & spatial models Make call for all existing spatial ontologies & spatial models Align with FEA GeoProfile, GeoLOB, W3C GeoXG Align with FEA GeoProfile, GeoLOB, W3C GeoXG Analyze Analyze Build! Build!

Visual Knowledge Semantic Wiki: Online Home of SOCoP

Last but not least – SOCoP Origins DAML – Space (~2004) OGC Geospatial Semantic Web Interoperability Experiment (2005) Spatial Ontology for the Semantic Web Workshop Held at NSF through SICoP Held at NSF through SICoP Gathered Researchers, Technologists & Users of spatial ontology to determine requirements needed for spatial ontology in the Semantic Web Gathered Researchers, Technologists & Users of spatial ontology to determine requirements needed for spatial ontology in the Semantic Web 80+ attendees 80+ attendees

Attendees Government NASA NASA NSF NSF NGA NGA Army Army NOAA NOAA Ordnance Survey (UK) Ordnance Survey (UK) EPA EPA DHS DHS DoE DoE GSA GSA FGDC FGDCIndustry Oracle Oracle SRI SRI NGIT-TASC NGIT-TASC BBN Technologies BBN Technologies Image Matters Image Matters Thetus Thetus Traverse Technologies Traverse Technologies Cycorp CycorpAcademic USC-ISI USC-ISI U. of Maine U. of Maine U. of Leeds (UK) U. of Leeds (UK) Exeter U. (UK) Exeter U. (UK) U. of Munster (Germany) U. of Munster (Germany) U. of Buffalo U. of Buffalo U. of Wisconsin U. of Wisconsin IHMC IHMC

The End - See you on the wiki! My thanks to: Brand Niemann Brand Niemann Mills Davis Mills Davis Kevin Backe Kevin Backe John Moeller John Moeller Gary Berg-Cross Gary Berg-Cross Eric Little Eric Little