ABSTRACT

While ontological modelling and Semantic Web technologies are sometimes used to describe knowledge domains with a spatial component, there is still a lack of semantics to describe how to present this knowledge geovisually to the end user and how to automatize the process. In this paper, we first present vocabularies to describe at a high level the elements that make up a geovisualization. We then propose a method that describes at a semantic level how to obtain a geovisualization from an existing data model. This method is based on our vocabularies and on a set of semantic rules encoding rich and complex operations on data. This leads to the derivation of ontological knowledge, ready to be exploited to automate the creation of a geovisualization. The method is implemented in a framework that uses Semantic Web technologies. The singularity and the strength of our proposal is that it enables to describe a geovisualization through a RDF specification file, which once loaded in our system makes the geovisualization directly available for use from a Web browser. This result is obtained by extending a priori an application data model with ad hoc geovisualization semantics features and rules.

摘要

虽然有时使用本体建模和语义 Web 技术来描述具有空间组件的知识域，但仍然缺乏语义来描述如何以地理视觉方式向最终用户呈现这些知识以及如何使过程自动化。在本文中，我们首先提出词汇表，以在高层次上描述构成地理可视化的元素。然后，我们提出了一种方法，在语义级别描述如何从现有数据模型中获取地理可视化。这种方法基于我们的词汇表和一组编码丰富而复杂的数据操作的语义规则。这导致了本体知识的推导，准备被利用来自动创建地理可视化。该方法是在使用语义 Web 技术的框架中实现的。我们的提议的独特之处和优势在于它能够通过 RDF 规范文件来描述地理可视化，一旦加载到我们的系统中，就可以直接从 Web 浏览器使用地理可视化。这个结果是通过扩展得到的先验的具有特殊地理可视化语义特征和规则的应用程序数据模型。