OntoEdit: Which DAML+OIL features are/will be supported?

      DAML+OIL features supported by OntoEdit

According to the discussion about the capabilities of the different 
ontology editors, we would like to describe which language constructs of 
the DAML+OIL language are supported by OntoEdit 2.0 and which will be 
supported in future versions. Confer 
http://www.ontoprise.de/com/start_downlo.htm for additional information.


      Executive overview

OntoEdit fully supports the following DAML+OIL constructs:

- daml:Ontology

- daml:versionInfo, rdfs:comment, rdfs:label

- daml:Class, rdfs:Class, rdfs:subClassOf

- rdfs:Property

- daml:Restriction

- daml:cardinality, daml:minCardinality, daml:maxCardinality

- daml:onProperty, daml:toClass

- daml:inverseOf, daml:TransitiveProperty

- daml:disjointWith

We are working on the following features to include in OntoEdit:

- daml:imports

- rdfs:subPropertyOf

- daml:DataTypeProperty, daml:ObjectProperty

Note: DAML+OIL allows (and encourages) the use of anonymous classes that 
are defined by their properties. In general, OntoEdit does not support 
these implicitly defined classes and expects named classes instead of 
class-expressions. Thus OntoEdit is somehow restricted to a more OO-like 
usage of DAML+OIL. Nevertheless, certain information contained in 
anonymous classes are handled by OntoEdit (cf. property-restrictions).


      Detailed description

The structure of the following list mirrors roughly the structure of the 
DAML+OIL reference description ( 
http://www.daml.org/2001/03/reference.html ).


      Header <http://www.daml.org/2001/03/reference.html#Header>

The DAML+OIL header daml:Ontology for ontology definitions and 
daml:versionInfo for metadata information about the ontology are fully 
supported.

Information from daml:imports is currently lost. This topic is on our 
mid-term to-do list, and already realized in OntoEdit's basic datamodel. 
Thus only the GUI and import and export filters must be updated.


      Objects and datatype values
      <http://www.daml.org/2001/03/reference.html#Object>

OntoEdit supports instances of classes/concepts as well as atomic 
values. These atomic values are assumed to be "instances" of XML-Schema 
datatypes or of types that are derived from XML-Schema. Currently, 
XML-Schema definitions are not processed while importing DAML+OIL 
ontologies.


      Class elements <http://www.daml.org/2001/03/reference.html#Class>
      and class expressions

The basic DAML+OIL constructs for defining classes and class hierarchies 
( daml:Class, rdfs:Class, rdfs:subClassOf ) are supported.

The daml:disjointWith property of classes will be supported in the next 
implementation of OntoEdit.

The daml:disjointUnionOf property and all properties assigning 
equivalence between classes, properties or instances are not supported 
(e.g. daml:equivalentTo or daml:sameClassAs ).


      Enumerations <htp://www.daml.org/2001/03/reference.html#Enumerated>

The definition of a class that is defined by a closed list of its 
members (i.e. the daml:oneOf element) is not supported.


      Property restrictions
      <http://www.daml.org/2001/03/reference.html#Restriction>

Properties restrictions are handled by OntoEdit although they usually 
represent anonymous classes. If such an anonymous class is subclassed by 
a named class the value of the daml:onProperty property is assumed to 
represent a local property of the subclassing class and all properties 
of this property belong to the local property. The range of the property 
is assumed to be the single named class in daml:toClass.

The daml:Restriction s to define unqualified cardinality constraints are 
supported by OntoEdit. Their qualified parallels daml:cardinalityQ , 
daml:minCardinalityQ , and daml:maxCardinalityQ are not supported.


      Boolean combination of class expressions
      <http://www.daml.org/2001/03/reference.html#Boolean>

It is not planned to support the set operators ( daml:intersectionOf , 
daml:unionOf , daml:complementOf ) for classes.


      Property elements
      <http://www.daml.org/2001/03/reference.html#Property>

OntoEdit also supports both global properties and local properties that 
are restricted to single classes

A property may have at most one rdfs:domain (a named class), cf. 
daml:toClass above and at most one named class as its rdfs:range.

A distinction between daml:ObjectProperty and daml: DatatypeProperty is 
currently not made.

Modelling relation hierarchies with rdfs:subPropertyOf will be 
representable in future versions but will not be supported by the GUI, 
i.e. one might import/export rdfs:subPropertyOf statements but will not 
be able to model it explicitly.

Again, the equivalence properties of properties are not supported. The 
properties daml:inverseOf and daml:TransitiveProperty are supported, 
while uniqueness and unambiguousness are not.


      Instances <http://www.daml.org/2001/03/reference.html#Instances>

All legal RDF instances are handled as DAML+OIL instances by OntoEdit, 
irrespective of their actual serialized (XML/RDF) format. Again, the 
equivalence properties of instances are not supported.


      Datatype Values <http://www.daml.org/2001/03/reference.html#Values>

Atomic values are handled in the way as the DAML+OIL reference proposes. 
This is achieved by interpreting all XML-Schema datatypes as special 
built-in concepts.


      rdf:parseType="daml:collection"
      <http://www.daml.org/2001/03/reference.html#collection>

The DAML+OIL collections and its RDF primitives are not supported by 
OntoEdit.


      Additional features of OntoEdit useful for DAML+OIL processing

OntoEdit supports multiple languages for all labels and documentations.

· It open plug-in structure for maximum configuration, extension and 
modularity capabilities

It offers an open plug-in structure for maximum configuration, extension 
and modularity capabilities. A number of plug-ins is already available 
such as

· integrated inferencing for interactive testing, consistency checking 
via a seamless integration with the inference engine OntoBroker

· OntoKick, to support the early phases of ontology development (OTK 
methodology)

· Domain lexicon

In the near future OntoEdit will support the following features:

· multiple ontologies

· collaborative ontology development

· ontology mapping

· graphical rule composition

Furthermore OntoEdit comes with professional support by ontoprise GmbH. 
Requests for further information can be sent to 
mailto:ontoedit@ontoprise.de or may be found at http://www.ontoprise.com 
<http://www.ontoprise.com/> resp. http://www.ontoprise.de 
<http://www.ontoprise.de/> .