Re: Visual Rendering of OWL ontologies?

Anne and all,

I've revised the wiki page, referenced below, to include a little more 
information about the UML profile for RDF and OWL that I hope will be 
useful for this group.  I have not had time to look at the ontology Anne 
suggested for use in examples, but will do so as time permits.

Best,

Elisa

Anne Cregan wrote:

> Hi Alan,
>
> Actually I'm not suggesting anything so far, I just wanted to open it 
> up for discussion. It may well be that if there is an activity to 
> conduct here, it fits better with OWLED
> than with OWL-WG, so apologies if I have not gone about this the right 
> way.
> However I didn't want to pre-judge whether there should be an 
> activity, or what kind
> of an activity it might be.
>
> Bijan and Ivan recommended to me to shift this page to the official WG 
> wiki (I guess that
> indicates they think it should be an OWL-WG concern rather than an 
> OWLED one?),
> and it is now at
>
>    http://www.w3.org/2007/OWL/wiki/UML_Concrete_Syntax
>
> with the OWLED  page as a forward pointer:
>    http://code.google.com/p/owl1-1/wiki/UMLGraphicalNotation
>
> Again apologies if I have gone about things the wrong way.  I am 
> relatively new to the group
> and appreciate the clarification.
>
> Just so I can be clear on the distinction - should I take it then that 
> the OWL-CNL task force has no official
> status within the OWL-WG?
>
> Thanks
>
> Anne
>
>
> Alan Ruttenberg wrote:
>
>> Hi Anne,
>>
>> I'm uncertain whether you are suggesting an activity for the working 
>> group, or an OWLED activity. You mentioned this in the same sentence 
>> as CNL, which is an OWLED Task force. The distinction is that OWLED 
>> Task forces are generally conceived as sort of incubation projects 
>> for a future version of OWL focused on topics that are of interest 
>> but need development, and it would  seems that this project would 
>> fall into that category.
>>
>> If an OWLED activity, a better place to have the discussion would be 
>> the public-owl-dev@w3.org discussion list. (Most of us read both, but 
>> the owl dev list allows posting by more than working group members).
>>
>> Regards,
>> Alan
>>
>> On Nov 11, 2007, at 2:20 AM, Anne Cregan wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Hi all,
>>>
>>> I've received some replies off-list, particularly some details of 
>>> the UML profiles developed for OWL and RDF as part of the ODM.
>>>
>>> One thing I would particularly like to clarify (as Bijan highlighted 
>>> to me) is that this thread is intended to address a visual 
>>> *notation* for OWL,
>>> not the visualization of ontologies in a broader sense.
>>>
>>> I've started a wiki page to capture details of the various Graphical 
>>> Notations for OWL and RDF that have been developed to date:
>>>
>>> http://code.google.com/p/owl1-1/wiki/GraphicalNotation
>>>
>>> Please contribute any more you are aware of.
>>>
>>>
>>> I've also recorded some details of the UML Graphical Notation 
>>> developed for RDF and OWL1.0 within the ODM, in a linked page at
>>>
>>> http://code.google.com/p/owl1-1/wiki/UMLGraphicalNotation
>>>
>>> This info was kindly provided by Elisa Kendall, who was closely 
>>> involved in the development effort.
>>>
>>>
>>> Best Regards,
>>> Anne
>>>
>>>
>>> Anne Cregan wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Hi Alexander,
>>>> Please see comments below
>>>>
>>>> Alexander Garcia Castro wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> My five cents:
>>>>>
>>>>> independent of any ontology editor
>>>>>
>>>>> from my experience the graphical representation of the ontology 
>>>>> should
>>>>> not be kept separated from the manipulation of OWL constructs. the
>>>>> graphical representation should also provide the means for direct
>>>>> manipulation. Editors such as Protege have a lot of visual aids, all
>>>>> of them are separated from the editing process. This, in practical
>>>>> terms, means that one always has to go back to the hard-to-manage
>>>>> tree-like-hierarchy. A good example that illustrates the 
>>>>> importance of
>>>>> this relationship (editing and visualizing)  comes from very advanced
>>>>> IDEs such as JDEVELOPER, JBUILDER, etc. For these IDEs the
>>>>> visualization facilitates the manipulation of those constructs the
>>>>> language provides, also facilitates the processes one has to run as a
>>>>> programmer.
>>>>>
>>>> I wasn't meaning in any way to devalue your work - I think it's a 
>>>> fantastic idea to be able to edit
>>>> ontologies graphically, and I'm really looking forward to trying 
>>>> out your stuff!
>>>>
>>>> My motivation was more from the angle of : now we have this 
>>>> ontology and we want to show it to
>>>> people in some generally acceptable way.  I often find myself 
>>>> preparing presentations that show
>>>> ontologies (or at least try to!) and I'd just like to have some 
>>>> consensus on what shape is a class,
>>>> what does a property look like, what does a restriction look like 
>>>> etc, so that people can easily interpret
>>>> what they are seeing in the way they currently can with E-R 
>>>> diagrams for instance.
>>>>
>>>>> do working group members have any strong feeling about a preferred 
>>>>> way
>>>>>
>>>>>> to do it?
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> In my opinion this is problem dependent. Not only depends on the
>>>>> ontology at hand, but also the "what do you need the visualization
>>>>> for" affects the choice.
>>>>>
>>>> That's a good point, and part of the nature and power of ontologies 
>>>> is their ability to be
>>>> viewed and used from many "angles" (by class, by property, by 
>>>> individual etc).  It may well not be
>>>> just one view but several related views that we will need.  It may 
>>>> not be realistic to expect to capture
>>>> a whole ontology in just one diagram.
>>>>
>>>>>  do we want to discuss the approaches and perhaps consider moving
>>>>>
>>>>>> towards a recommended approach?
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> An open discussion may lead to a series of recommendations. that 
>>>>> would
>>>>> be nice. I could in that way enrich my plug in, and the rest of the
>>>>> tools we are currently planning to develop.
>>>>>
>>>> I think something like what Vipul suggested - a UML-like 
>>>> representation - is worth pursuing.
>>>> I look forward to comments from those in the community who have 
>>>> worked on the ODM and
>>>> may have some valuable advice here.
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> We already have a task force working an English syntax for OWL1.1,
>>>>>> perhaps we might want to consider
>>>>>> a task force working towards agreeing on a visual representation 
>>>>>> as well.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> This representation along with the corresponding graphical 
>>>>> environment
>>>>> should facilitate the development of ontologies by domain experts.
>>>>> Even if it is just at the level of a baseline ontology.
>>>>>
>>>> I agree, although IMHO even domain experts should get their hands 
>>>> dirty and use the tools, not
>>>> just look at static diagrams!
>>>>
>>>> Best Regards,
>>>> Anne
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Nov 10, 2007 4:47 AM, Anne Cregan <Anne.Cregan@nicta.com.au> 
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Hi everyone,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I have lately seen several approaches to visual rendering of 
>>>>>> ontologies
>>>>>> (see details below).
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I'm wondering how the group feel about the visual representation of
>>>>>> ontologies as diagrams
>>>>>> independent of any ontology editor:
>>>>>> - do working group members have any strong feeling about a 
>>>>>> preferred way
>>>>>> to do it?
>>>>>> - do we want to discuss the approaches and perhaps consider moving
>>>>>> towards a recommended approach?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> We already have a task force working an English syntax for OWL1.1,
>>>>>> perhaps we might want to consider
>>>>>> a task force working towards agreeing on a visual representation 
>>>>>> as well.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thoughts and comments invited.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Best Regards,
>>>>>> Anne
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Posting today on CG list from Alexander Garcia Castro 
>>>>>> <alexgarciac@gmail.com
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> We have developed a new tool that facilitates the generation of
>>>>>>> ontologies in  graphical way. The tool is a plug-in for Protege, it
>>>>>>> uses all of Protege OWL plug in in order to facilitate the direct
>>>>>>> manipulation of OWL constructs. In this way domain experts are 
>>>>>>> able to
>>>>>>> build ontologies in a simple and intuitive manner, the plug-in also
>>>>>>> allows users to load pre-existing ontologies and edit them by using
>>>>>>> the same graphical features. The tool is available at
>>>>>>> http://map2owl.sourceforge.net/, initially our web site is only in
>>>>>>> Spanish, an English version is on the pipe.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> There's also a tool called VisioOWL
>>>>>> http://mysite.verizon.net/jflynn12/VisioOWL/VisioOWL.htm
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> VisioOWL is a Microsoft Visio application to support the use of 
>>>>>>> Visio
>>>>>>> for creating graphical representations of OWL ontologies. This
>>>>>>> implementation is intended to provide, as close as possible, a 
>>>>>>> direct
>>>>>>> one-to-one mapping between the OWL language constructs and their
>>>>>>> graphical representation. The graphical representation of an OWL
>>>>>>> ontology may provide, for some developers and users, a more
>>>>>>> comprehensive insight into overall class and property relationships
>>>>>>> than could be garnered from the OWL markup alone.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> The contact listed is John Flynn jflynn12@verizon.net
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I believe there's also a UML-aligned approach as developed as 
>>>>>> part of the OMG Ontology Metamodel
>>>>>> led by Evan Wallace ewallace@nist.gov
>>>>>>
>>>>>> http://www.omg.org/ontology/
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>
>
>
>

Received on Tuesday, 13 November 2007 02:37:39 UTC