Re: space and time

Krzysztof, Raphaël -

Academic publication time-frames drive me crazy. I have placed an excerpt from our chapter-in-review on my web site so list members who have an interest can read it. The chapter is about Linked Data for historical gazetteers and the pattern discussion comes in Section 3. As Krzysztof says, it is an informal introduction. 

  http://kgeographer.com/assets/GrossnerJanowiczKessler_excerpt.pdf

This discussion is of great interest. Yes, there is now an effort at a new GeoJSON-LD standard, and I have co-instigated getting time into it (not into core GeoJSON; that idea has been rejected by its keepers).

I should also note my recent work with Elijah Meeks on Topotime (http://dh.stanford.edu/topotime)

People's views about the urgency of somehow joining spatial and temporal seem to vary depending on the use cases they deal with the most. I work in historical applications and see the joining as essential.

Regarding the observation that any data _could_ have a temporal dimension so why favor spatial, I would say this: it's not about adding temporality to widget data, it's about the opportunity to include temporal with spatial if you're representing widget locations. 

The location of a thing or event/period is in fact spatial and temporal whether or not we care about both aspects in a given situation. A general data model should account for the essential characteristics of what it models! In the case of GeoJSON-LD, a Feature will have an optional "when" object at the same level as the "geometry" object. Existing software that parses GeoJSON will ignore the "when" (as well as the @context), but applications can be written to process it.

I'm not thrilled with how GeoJSON-LD is shaping up but do consider it making time a co-equal aspect with space in answers to "where?" a significant step forward.

cheers, Karl


------------------ 
Karl Grossner, PhD 
Digital Humanities Research Developer 
Stanford University Libraries 
Stanford,CA US 
www.kgeographer.org 


----- Original Message -----
> Dear Krzysztof,
> 
> > If you are interested in a tight integration of space and time, we are
> > currently working on a so-called 'settings' ontology design pattern that
> > does exactly that. It was developed during the last Geo-VoCamp in Santa
> > Barbara in March 2014. We also have a more informal piece about this
> > that is currently under review (I am cc-ing Karl Grossner in case he
> > wants to share the draft)
> 
> Are you saying that this work is being currently peer-reviewed? I would
> definitively be interested in reading the draft and/or the summary of
> the March Geo-VoCamp (any pointers?) but I understand you might not be
> able to share it just right now.
> Best regards.
> 
>    Raphaël
> 
> --
> Raphaël Troncy
> EURECOM, Campus SophiaTech
> Multimedia Communications Department
> 450 route des Chappes, 06410 Biot, France.
> e-mail: raphael.troncy@eurecom.fr & raphael.troncy@gmail.com
> Tel: +33 (0)4 - 9300 8242
> Fax: +33 (0)4 - 9000 8200
> Web: http://www.eurecom.fr/~troncy/
> 
>

Received on Monday, 26 May 2014 14:24:11 UTC