Semantic spatial interoperability framework : a case study in the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) domain

• Main Author: Webster, April
• Language: English
• Published: University of British Columbia 2010
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/28461

The volume of disseminated digital spatial data has exploded, generating demand for tools to support interoperability and the extraction of usable knowledge. Previous work on spatial interoperability has focused on semi-automatically generating the mappings to mediate multi-modal spatial data. We present a case study in the Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) domain that demonstrates that even after this level of semantic interoperability has been achieved, mappings from the integrated spatial data to concepts desired by the domain experts must be articulated. We propose the Semantic Spatial Interoperability Framework to provide the next layer of semantic interoperability: GML provides the syntactic glue for spatial and non-spatial data integration, and an ontology provides the semantic glue for domain-specific knowledge extraction. Mappings between the two are created by extending XQuery with spatial query predicates.