A1-D5 Ontology Driven Visualisation of Maps with SVG Project title: Reasoning on the Web with Rules and Semantics Project acronym: REWERSE Project number: IST-2004-506779 Project instrument: EU FP6 Network of Excellence (NoE) Project thematic priority: Priority 2: Information Society Technologies (IST) Document type: D (deliverable) Nature of document: R (report) Dissemination level: PU (public) Document number: IST506779/Munich/A1-D5/D/PU/a1 Responsible editors: H.J. Ohlbach Reviewers: Michael Rosner Contributing participants: Munich Contributing workpackages: A1 Contractual date of deliverable: 31 August 2005 Actual submission date: 29 September 2005 Abstract In this work we demonstrate a particular use of ontologies for visualising maps in a browser win- dow. The GIS data are represented in the OWL data format that corresponds to the ontology of transporation networks (OTN). These data are transformed into Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG). The transformation is specified symbolically as instances of a transformation ontology. This approach is extremely flexible and easily extendible to include all kinds of information in the generated maps. Keyword List semantic web, geospatial notions, ontologies, scalable vector graphics, visualisation Project co-funded by the European Commission and the Swiss Federal Office for Education and Science within the Sixth Framework Programme. c REWERSE 2005. ii Ontology Driven Visualisation of Maps with SVG Hans J¨urgenOhlbach1, Bernhard Lorenz2 1 Department of Computer Science, University of Munich Email: [email protected] 2 Department of Computer Science, University of Munich Email: [email protected] 29 September 2005 Abstract In this work we demonstrate a particular use of ontologies for visualising maps in a browser win- dow. The GIS data are represented in the OWL data format that corresponds to the ontology of transporation networks (OTN). These data are transformed into Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG). The transformation is specified symbolically as instances of a transformation ontology. This approach is extremely flexible and easily extendible to include all kinds of information in the generated maps. Keyword List semantic web, geospatial notions, ontologies, scalable vector graphics, visualisation iv Contents 1 Introduction 1 2 SVG Visualisation 3 2.1 The Final Result . 3 2.2 Dynamic Loading . 3 2.3 Rasterisation . 5 2.4 Levels of Detail . 6 2.5 Extensions to SVG groups . 6 3 From OTN to SVG 7 3.1 Formulas . 10 4 Further Services 11 5 Summary and Outlook 12 v vi 1 Introduction In Deliverable A1-D4 the Ontology of Transportation Networks OTN has been described. OTN was generated by making the concepts and structures which are implicitly contained in the Geographic Data Format (GDF) explicit as an OWL ontology. OTN contains all kinds of notions for transportation networks, roads, trains, ferries and much much more. In this deliverable A1- D5 we show one of the applications of an ontology like OTN, the ontology driven generation of displayable maps in Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) [1, 2]. There are may different ways for generating maps as pictures on a computer. The most straight- forward way is to read the geographic data from a file or a database and use a special purpose algorithm that transforms the data into some bitmap graphics format. These algorithms are complicated and not easy to change and extend. Only experts who are familiar with the details of the algorithms can do this. The algorithms depend very much on the particular data format of the geographic data, and they usually yield static pictures. A second method is to generate instead of bitmap graphics, code in a graphics description language. An example for such a language is SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics). SVG is an XML- based language for describing geometric objects. There are special plugins for web browsers which can render SVG files in a browser window [2]. Compared to bitmap graphics, SVG has a number of advantages: • since it is vector graphics, it is zoomable without loosing resolution on the screen; • it has language constructs for describing dynamic changes of the graphics; • since SVG objects have a DOM representation [3] in the browser, script languages like JavaScript can interact with it. SVG documents can therefore serve as GUIs to interact with the user. We used this to allow the user to interactively change the presentation of the maps; • SVG renderers can adapt the generated picture to the output device. Therefore the SVG generator need not worry about the device characteristics; • SVG documents are XML documents which can be read by humans. This is very useful during the development and test phase of SVG generators. The generation of code in a graphics description language like SVG instead of bitmap graphics has therefore the advantages: • the algorithms for transforming the geographic data are much simpler because the ren- dering of the graphical data is done by the browser; • the generated graphics code is device independent. The renderer automatically adapts the graphics to the output device; • if the graphics description language has constructs for dynamic pictures, they can be used directly without having to care about rendering image sequences; 1 • most kinds of interaction, zooming in and out to a certain extent, for example, is done by the browser, and need not be taken into account by the transformation algorithms. The primary data sources for the visualisation are usually GIS databases in some of the standard formats, GDF [11] or GML [4], for example. This is not the only choice. In this paper we propose an alternative. We still use GIS data in some of the standard formats as primary source, but only because these are the only available data. The idea is to take an OWL ontology of transportation networks, in our case OTN, and to represent the data as instances of the concepts of this ontology. OWL provides a data format for instances of the concepts of the ontology, and we use the OWL data format for the GIS data. This is not just a syntactic reformulation. It offers completely new possibilities because the OWL data format is only loosely coupled with the OWL ontology. For example, consider an ontology containing the concept of a road.A road may have directions, at most two. If there is a particular road R with directions = 1 then OWL would classify R as a road. If, in a later step, the ontology is extended with the concept one way road as a road with directions = 1 then OWL would automatically reclassify R as a one way road. Thus, there is a certain degree of independence between the OWL data format and the ontology. The same data can be used for different ontologies. The method for visualising maps proposed (and implemented) in this deliverable is now basically as follows: There are three classes of input data 1. the concrete GIS data which has been transformed into the OWL data format (we used the map of Munich); 2. an ontology of transportation networks, in our case OTN; 3. a set of transformation rules which determine how the instances of the concepts in the ontology are to be transformed into SVG code. The transformation algorithm now applies the transformation rules to all relevant instances of the concepts in the ontology and produces SVG documents as output. With this architecture it is extremely easy to change the visualisation. For example, if we want to distinguish one–way roads from ordinary roads, it is only necessary to introduce the concept of a one–way road in the ontology and to add a corresponding transformation rule. If the data source is in XML, which is the case for GML or the OWL data format, and the target is also XML, which is the case for SVG, there is a further alternative for generating maps. One can develop an XSLT style sheet that transforms the GIS data into SVG [5]. This approach is, however, very limited and inflexible because the XSLT style sheet depends extremely on the structure of the XML data source. Moreover, it does not support rasterisation and levels of detail, which is extremely important for working with large maps. In this document we describe the basic ideas and techniques of our approach. More details can be found in [6]. 2 2 SVG Visualisation We start with a description of the SVG visualisation technique because this motivates some of the design decisions for the transformation method. 2.1 The Final Result The final result of the visualisation is illustrated in Figure 1. The browser window consists of a frame containing the SVG map and a HTML menu on the right hand side. The SVG map is zoomable in a wide range, more than the built–in SVG zooming facility allows. One can change the section to be displayed by just dragging the mouse over the window. The map may contain dynamic elements, for example buses or trains moving along the rails, clouds moving over the scene etc. The menu allows the user to choose what he wants to see. It is divided into two main sections Modules and Ontology. The Ontology section corresponds to a display ontology, which is a tree of concepts in the transportation network realm. Checking or unchecking the appropriate box causes the corresponding items in the map to become visible or invisible. A module in the upper section of the menu consists of a set of elements from the display ontology. Any combination of elements from the display ontology can form a module. Checking or unchecking makes the whole group of items visible or invisible. There is a further feature which is not part of the section of the browser window shown in Fig. 1. Below the map there is a text input section where one can type in a street name and the street is then highlighted in the map.