Allow multiple modelling levels for connection patterns between objects and geometry descriptions

[FransKnibbe]

Contributed by Anna Wagner and Mathias Bonduel for the white paper "Benefits of Representing Spatial Data using Semantic and Graph Technologies":

Currently, GeoSPARQL requires one intermediate node to attach geometry descriptions to objects. However, in some cases, this might be too complicated and reduce querying performance, while other cases might require additional nodes (e.g. version control). In the Ontology for Managing Geometry (OMG, https://w3id.org/omg), multiple levels for connecting geometry descriptions and objects exist. OMG level 1 implements direct connections between objects and their geometry description (omg:hasSimpleGeometryDescription and omg:hasComplexGeometryDescription), level 2 adds one intermediate node (omg:Geometry), similar to GeoSPARQL 1.0, and the third level adds another node (omg:GeometryState) for versioning purposes. The selection which level is used in a situation depends on the required features (balance between simplicity and functionality).

In AEC, for example, versioning, and thus level 3, is needed during (1) design phase of buildings and (2) for modeling change over time of a building (e.g. changes to building elements, geometry from multiple surveys over time), while data exchange without need for additional metadata would be most performant with level 1 and storage of certain planning stages would be ideally implemented with level 2 to allow multiple geometry descriptions.

Also see the following publications:

• Wagner, A., Bonduel, M., Pauwels, P., & Uwe, R. (2019). Relating geometry descriptions to its derivatives on the web. In Proceedings of the European Conference on Computing in Construction (EC3 2019) (pp. 304–313). Chania, Greece. https://doi.org/10.35490/EC3.2019.146

• Bonduel, M., Wagner, A., Pauwels, P., Vergauwen, M., & Klein, R. (2019). Including widespread geometry formats in semantic graphs using RDF literals. In Proceedings of the European Conference on Computing in Construction (EC3 2019) (pp. 341–350). Chania, Greece. https://doi.org/10.35490/EC3.2019.166

[mathib]

raised by @AnnaWagner and I

[mathib]

added to OGC standards tracker: http://ogc.standardstracker.org/show_request.cgi?id=635

[rob-metalinkage]

Might I suggest that entailment rules for converting between levels (obviously lossy) are included in the specification. This is equivalent to RDF reification. Also consider potential role of RDF* in future - again I think a RDF* level 1 could be entailed to a RDF level 3 and vice versa, if it was done consistently - so rules for this to make it canonical.

[jabhay]

MoSCoW poll created