Ontology-Based Descriptions for Semantic Discovery and Composition of Geoprocessing Services

Author: Lutz, Michael

Source: GeoInformatica, Volume 11, Number 1, March 2007 , pp. 1-36(36)

Publisher: Springer

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Abstract:

The ability to process geospatial data will be a great benefit for spatial data infrastructures. This requires the ability to compose data providing services with geoprocessing services. Discovering suitable geoprocessing services is a major challenge in this endeavour. Current (keyword-based) approaches to service discovery are inherently restricted by the ambiguities of natural language, which can lead to low precision and/or recall. To alleviate these problems, we propose to use an ontology-based approach to GI service discovery, which rests on two ideas. Ontologies describing geospatial operations are used to create descriptions of requirements and service capabilities; matches between these descriptions are identified based on function subtyping. We use a running example from the geospatial domain to analyse which problems can occur in existing keyword- and ontology-based approaches and how the discovery of geoprocessing services differs from other service discovery tasks. The example is also used for illustrating the prototypical implementation of the proposed approach.

Keywords: GI service discovery; GI service composition; Spatial data infrastractures; Ontologies; Matchmaking

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10707-006-7635-9

Affiliations: 1: Email: michael.lutz@jrc.it

Publication date: 2007-03-01