Re: How to describe Flowcharts, Schematics, etc

Steven,

re your question about intros to XML and RDF:

The w3c home for XML is http://www.w3.org/XML/

There's an faq at http://www.ucc.ie/xml/

The w3c home for RDF is at http://www.w3.org/RDF/

The spec is at http://www.w3.org/RDF/

The spec includes a tutorial within it.  Folks using text-based browsing
should be sure to click on the D links following the diagrams for textual
descriptions.

Does anyone else have further suggestions for intros?

Len


At 01:52 PM 8/13/99 -0400, Steven McCaffrey wrote:
>    
>Hi Len, Charles etal:
>I'm afraid I am not up to speed on any of XML,RDF or SVG so I can't add to
any of the implementation discussion.  At this  point I would like to say
that I agree with the notion of choosing a representation that separates
structure from content as Len said:   
>">
>Yet another way, which goes even further in separating content from
>structure, would be to represent the abstract information (e.g.
>organization chart) as XML and use a  style sheet to translate that to
>graphics.  Then the RDF, and the logic programming, could apply directly to
>the abstract information.
>
>These would all make the diagrams more useful to everyone (and to machines)
>since they wouldn't just be pictures anymore: they would be information."
>
>Yes, excellent.  I'll try to read up on XML and RDF.  Any suggestions for
people new to these formats/languages
>-Thanks,
>Steve
>
>?
>
>
>  
>
>
>
>
>------
>Steven McCaffrey
>Information Technology Services
>NYSED
>(518)-473-3453
>
>
>>>> "Leonard R. Kasday" <kasday@acm.org> 08/13 11:08 AM >>>
>Re Charle's remark that 
>
>> maybe we should look at hot to describe the relationships between
>>elements of a diagram, and go from tehre to representing the elements and
>>relationships in SVG...
>
>Here's a couple of thoughts on what we want to represent and the details of
>exactly how we would represent it.  
>
>First, what we want to represent.  Lets take Steve's example of the
>questions a person might want answered by the diagram:
>
>>To
>>  take a very simple example, if I have an organization chart, I might ask
>>  "Who is the director of the organization?"  or "Who is the head of my
>>  department/division?" or "Who is my counterpart in office x?"etc. 
>
>These are questions that deal with relations between object in the diagram.
>This suggests that we anticipate all these questions and specify answers.
>The author could put in all the answers by hand.  Or there could be logic
>tools that do it mostly automatically, using logic programming. For
>example, the author could specify rules that define "counterpart" a program
>could figure out all counterparts.
>
>As for how we represent it. Rather than make it part of the new scalable
>vector graphics (SVG) standard I'd suggest that we use RDF to specify the
>relationships between objects in the SVG graphics.  The logic programming
>could the be done by e.g.
>the logic-based rdf interpreter at
>http://www.aifb.uni-karlsruhe.de/~sde/rdf/ .
>
>Yet another way, which goes even further in separating content from
>structure, would be to represent the abstract information (e.g.
>organization chart) as XML and use a  style sheet to translate that to
>graphics.  Then the RDF, and the logic programming, could apply directly to
>the abstract information.
>
>These would all make the diagrams more useful to everyone (and to machines)
>since they wouldn't just be pictures anymore: they would be information.
>
>Len
>-------
>Leonard R. Kasday, Ph.D.
>Universal Design Engineer, Institute on Disabilities/UAP, and
>Adjunct Professor, Electrical Engineering
>Temple University
>
>Ritter Hall Annex, Room 423, Philadelphia, PA 19122
>kasday@acm.org        
>(215) 204-2247 (voice)
>(800) 750-7428 (TTY)
>
>
>
>
-------
Leonard R. Kasday, Ph.D.
Universal Design Engineer, Institute on Disabilities/UAP, and
Adjunct Professor, Electrical Engineering
Temple University

Ritter Hall Annex, Room 423, Philadelphia, PA 19122
kasday@acm.org        
(215) 204-2247 (voice)
(800) 750-7428 (TTY)

Received on Monday, 16 August 1999 10:25:15 UTC