Dear Robert,

On 8/3/2018 8:56 PM, Robert Sanderson wrote:

Thanks Martin!

To make certain I understand, the notion of SP6 Declarative Place would remain, along with Q11 approximates.  E53 would become the Phenomenal Place, and SP 5 Geometric Place Expression goes away in favor of P168 to a literal.

Nearly. SP6 Declarative Place should remain. E53 is and will remain the superclass of SP6 Declarative Place and SP2 Phenomenal Place. Q11 approximates may be generalized to E53 domain and range, because, e.g., the place of a building may approximate the place of a meeting. SP5 is already declared as subclass of E94. Mapping E94 to Literal is a question of CRM RDFS, not of CRMbase or CRMgeo. In CRMgeo, SP5 appears to be redundant to E94. So, It could go away in CRMgeo.

Thus:

Rob was born in Rangiora, New Zealand could be:

_:rob a E21_Person ;

  rdfs:label “Rob” ;

  p98i_was_born [

    a E67_Birth ;

p7_took_place_at [

      a E53_Place ;

rdfs:label “Rangiora” ;

q11i_approximated_by [

        a SP6_Declarative_Place ;

p2_has_type <xxx:Geospatial_Bounding_Box> ;

rdfs:label “Bounding Box for Rangiora” ;

P168_place_is_defined_by “POLYGON((172.565456 -43.285409, 172.622116 -43.285409, 172.622116 -43.323697, 172.565456 -43.323697, 172.565456 -43.285409))”

      ]

    ]

  ] .

Exactly!:-)

And further SP6s could be introduced for other approximations, such as centroids, points, exact boundaries, different coordinate systems, etc.

I had interpreted the footnote that SP6 would also be collapsed into Place, which I understand not to be the case now.

The question is, what to do with Q10, and if SP6  is needed as distinct class, because using P168 or Q10 implies that the instance of E53 defined by a geometric expression is, in particular, a declarative place. For methodological reasons, we avoid in a core ontology to define a class and a property which imply each other, because it creates a priority conflict when ontological distinctions begin to differ. Currently, explicitly naming SP6 appears to be more didactically useful. It appears that Q10 is causal to SP6, and not Q10 a consequence of SP6.

Given that I was only born at one location, the E53 provides the unique reference, and SP6 provides the ability to have different approximations of that location.  If only one approximation was needed, then E53 and SP6 could be collapsed, as SP6 is a subclass of E53. (Though that doesn’t seem like a good idea…)

This is not correct. Albeit that SP6 is a subclass of E53, deleting the subclass does not mean that two different places become one. Even if we do not distinguish at the class level between SP2 and SP6, and if there is only one approximation, the instances of the phenomenal and the approximating place are distinct, and will have different types. If a place is defined by P168, it can only be declarative.

If we would like to describe a phenomenal place for reasons of disambiguation etc. by a geometric expression directly, we would need a shortcut of SP2 - Q11 - SP6 - P168 - E94,  or, abandoning SP2 and SP6 explicitly, of E53 ("phenomenal") - Q11 - E53("declarative") - P168 - E94.

Another reason why I tend to avoid SP6 in CRMbase is that E53 Place may not be either phenomenal or declarative. There are mixed forms, we have not discussed in CRMgeo yet, such as borderlines partly defined by declaration, and partly by physical boundaries, and we need containers for them.

All the best,

Martin

Is that all correct?

Many thanks,

Rob

PS. FWIW, I use this tool to generate the WKT: https://boundingbox.klokantech.com/

*From: *Martin Doerr <mar...@ics.forth.gr>
*Date: *Friday, August 3, 2018 at 8:50 AM
*To: *Robert Sanderson <rsander...@getty.edu>, crm-sig <Crm-sig@ics.forth.gr>
*Subject: *Re: [Crm-sig] NEW ISSUE: Harmonizing Space Primitive

Dear Robert,

Thank you for your quick comments!
Your comments well taken, I agree with all the needs you specify, but I would like to point you to a confusion between a place defined by a geometry and the place defined by natural features, that are approximated by places defined by geometry. It was the particular achievement of Gerald Hiebel's analysis to make this distinction. I kindly ask you to read his papers, if my explanations here are not clear enough:

 1. Hiebel, G.H, Doerr, M. (2013). Aspects of integrating
    geoinformation in Digital Libraries (Session S32, 669)
    <http://caa2013.org/drupal/sessions>. /Computer Applications and
    Quantitative Methods in Archaeology (CAA) 2013/, Perth-Australia,
    25th -28th March 2013.
 2. Hiebel, G.H, Doerr, M., & Eide, Ø. (2013). Integration of CIDOC
    CRM with OGC Standards to model spatial information (Session5,
    522) <http://caa2013.org/drupal/sessions>. /Computer Applications
    and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology (CAA)
    2013/, Perth-Australia, 25th -28th March 2013. (pdf
    
<https://www.ics.forth.gr/_publications/CAA2013_Hiebel_Doerr_Eide_CIDOC_CRM_OGC.pdf>).

 3. Doerr, M., & Hiebel, G.H (2013). Where did the Varus battle take
    place? - A spatial refinement for the CIDOC CRM ontology (ID:760)
    
<https://www.conftool.com/wac7/index.php?page=browseSessions&form_session=150&metadata=show>.
    /Seventh World Archaeological Congress/,  The Dead Sea, Jordan,
    January 13th - 18th 2013.
 4. Doerr, M., & Hiebel, G.H (2013). CRMgeo: Linking the CIDOC CRM to
    GeoSPARQL through a Spatiotemporal Refinement.
    2013.TR435_CRMgeo_CIDOC_CRM_GeoSPARQL.pdf
    
<https://www.ics.forth.gr/tech-reports/2013/2013.TR435_CRMgeo_CIDOC_CRM_GeoSPARQL.pdf>.



In  more detail:

On 8/2/2018 8:50 PM, Robert Sanderson wrote:

    Martin, all,

    I feel that the implications of your footnote are somewhat
    problematic. I agree overall with the clarifications but, SP4/SP5
    add extra value.

    In particular:

    ·Use of literals prevents the association of additional
    information with the value, other than the custom datatype,
    especially:

    oAssociating P2_has_type is enormously useful to give guidance on
    the usage for the particular geometry.  Types might distinguish
    simple bounding boxes for user interfaces from very accurate
    geo-political boundary data that would be useful for calculations.
    Or coastlines from other boundaries. Preferred from alternative.

All these are examples of "declarative places". The simple bounding box, the centroid, the representation of a coastline, all are places. The coastline itself, is another, a phenomenal place. Therefore, the distinctions you are making here are about the quality of approximation between a phenomenal and a declarative place (Q11 approximates). They are not a property of the geometric place expression. In my opinion, the only property geometric place expressions have is the type of encoding. The exactly same geometry can be defined with different encoding types. The encoding type however is embedded in the XML datatype already, so there is no need to create an intermediate URI. We had cases in which it was registered which encoding a GPS device created, and which encoding was a translation of the former. In both cases, the device measured the same Place. I'd argue that this is not enough reason to reify the encoded string itself.

    oThe source / provenance of the data is very important.  Is this a
    bounding box that someone threw together, or data that is provided
    by an established authority?

Again, these are properties of the declarative place. How was it defined and why? If, what you attribute to an instance of SP5, you would attribute to an instance of E53 Place.P168...E94, we are talking exactly about the same information, isn't it?

    oThere are more formats than just WKT and GML. GeoJSON and KML are
    very frequently used, and there are many more besides those. Not
    all formats have the capacity to embed the reference system within
    the literal.

No problem, use "P157  is at rest relative to (provides reference space for)" for the declarative place, or a suitable type.

    oRelationships between geometries are also useful, such as
    partitioning.

Right, these are topological relations, and not relations between encodings. They hold for the mathematical space defined, and do not differ from encoding to encoding. So, they are relations between E53 Places, and we have a lot of them in CRMbase and CRMgeo.

    ·Literals can only be embedded within the serialized graph, rather
    than referenced externally. This means that the coastline of New
    Zealand (a 100+ mb file) would need to be embedded within the
    description of the E53 Place, rather than being referenced.

Again: The coastline of New Zealand is a fuzzy, rough thing of infinite length. Any representation is a Place in its own right, related by Q11 to the real coastline. All properties you require should be there.

If you feel my text (not the foot note) does not make it clear enough that each geometry expression defines a PLace in its own right, distinct from the Place it was made to approximate, please propose additional wording:-).

    ·Conversely a resource can have a URI and optionally a value,
    providing flexibility within a single model.

    ·Relying on subproperties to manage the data type runs into the
    extensibility problem above. We would need to continually create
    new properties when there are new data types.

Right. They are redundant, because the XML datatypes identify themselves. The query for a different property may be sometimes more convenient than querying for the datatype found in the Literal.

    A cognate situation is rdfs:label vs E41 Appellation – label is
    great if you have very simple data, but E41 provides clear
    advantages when you want to do more than just display a string to
    a user. Having a single literal (be it a label or geometry) is
    great for the simple cases, but rdfs:label does not obviate the
    need for E41.

I agree!!

    Nor should P168 obviate the need for a richer spatial system.

I argue that this is different. Geometric Place Expressions do not have a rich cultural history as names do (Martinus, Marty, Μαρτίνος, Αριανός....)
and the Place is not the Expression.

The devil is in the detail: OWL does not like classes which have either URIs or data values as instances. Therefore I argue not to make more of these constructs.
The problem with Appellation is already big enough.

Opinions?

Martin

    Rob

    *From: *Crm-sig <crm-sig-boun...@ics.forth.gr>
    <mailto:crm-sig-boun...@ics.forth.gr> on behalf of Martin Doerr
    <mar...@ics.forth.gr> <mailto:mar...@ics.forth.gr>
    *Date: *Thursday, August 2, 2018 at 8:55 AM
    *To: *crm-sig <Crm-sig@ics.forth.gr> <mailto:Crm-sig@ics.forth.gr>
    *Subject: *[Crm-sig] NEW ISSUE: Harmonizing Space Primitive

    Dear All,
    I have just finished a draft of the section "recording space" of
    the guideline "Expressing the CIDOC CRM in RDF
    
(https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zCGZ4iBzekcEYo4Dy0hI8CrZ7dTkMD2rJaxavtEOET0/edit#
    
<https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zCGZ4iBzekcEYo4Dy0hI8CrZ7dTkMD2rJaxavtEOET0/edit>):



    The recommended datatypes of

    RDF1.1 do not contain datatypes for describing geometric entities
    on the surface of earth. On the other side, they become
    increasingly important, and the CIDOC CRM version 6.2 on defines
     E94 Space Primitive, subclass of: E59 Primitive Value, as:

    “This

    class comprises instances of E59 Primitive Value for space that
    should be implemented with appropriate validation, precision and
    references to spatial coordinate systems to express geometries on
    or relative to earth, or any other stable constellations of matter,

    relevant to cultural and scientific documentation.

    An E94 Space Primitive defines

    an E53 Place in the sense of a declarative place as elaborated in
    CRMgeo (Doerr and Hiebel 2013), which means that the identity of
    the place is derived from its geometric definition. This
    declarative place allows for the application of all place properties

    to relate phenomenal places to their approximations expressed with
    geometries.

    Definitions of instances of

    E53 Place using different spatial reference systems always result
    in definitions of different instances of E53 place approximating
    each other. It is possible for a place to be defined by phenomena
    causal to it, such as a settlement or a riverbed, or other

    forms of identification rather than by an instance of E94 Space
    Primitive. Any geometric approximation of such a place by an
    instance of E94 Space Primitive constitutes an instance of E53
    Place in its own right, i.e., the approximating one.

    Instances of E94 Space Primitive

    provide the ability to link CRM encoded data to the kinds of
    geometries used in maps or Geoinformation systems. They may be
    used for visualisation of the instances of E53 Place they define,
    in their geographic context and for computing topological relations

    between places based on these geometries.

    E94

    Space Primitive is not further elaborated upon within this model.
    Compatibility with OGC standards are recommended.”

    These

    standards currently do not have a common form comprising all
    others. Further, geometries defined with respect to particular
    object shapes, such as rotationally symmetric ones, are possibly
    open ended.

    Therefore

    we define in the CRM RDFS the range of properties that use *E94
    Space Primitive* in the definition of the CRM as

    *rdfs:Literal*, and recommend the user to instantiate it with
    adequate XML datatypes. These are for the surface of Earth
     “*ogc:gmlLiteral”*

    or*“geo:wktLiteral”*.

    In

    the current version of the CIDOC CRM, only the property “P168
    place is defined by (defines place)” has range E94 Space Primitive.

    Since

    any instance of E94 Space Primitive identifies unambiguously an
    instance of E53 Place by a symbolic expression,

    *E94 Space Primitive must logically be regarded as a subclass of
    E41 Appellation*, regardless whether this can be expressed in RDFS
    or OWL. See below for the relationship between datatypes an E41
    Appellation.

    In a footnote I make the argument that:

    "The concepts E47 Spatial Coordinates,crmgeo: SP5 Geometric Place
    Expression, crmgeo:Q10 defines place and P168 place is defined by
    (defines place) need to be revised soon.
    *E94 Space Primitive should replace E47 Spatial Coordinates and
    SP5 Geometric Place Expression.* *P168 place is defined by
    (defines place) should replace crmgeo:Q10 defines place*. It may
    be useful in the CRM RDFS to specify *two subproperties of P168*,
    one having as range “geo:wktLiteral” and another “ogc:gmlLiteral”.

    Best,

    Martin


--
    --------------------------------------------------------------

      Dr. Martin Doerr              |  Vox:+30(2810)391625        |

      Research Director             |  Fax:+30(2810)391638        |

                                    |  Email:mar...@ics.forth.gr 
<mailto:mar...@ics.forth.gr>  |

                                                                  |

                    Center for Cultural Informatics               |

                    Information Systems Laboratory                |

                     Institute of Computer Science                |

        Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas (FORTH)   |

                                                                  |

                    N.Plastira 100, Vassilika Vouton,             |

                     GR70013 Heraklion,Crete,Greece               |

                                                                  |

                  Web-site:http://www.ics.forth.gr/isl            |

    --------------------------------------------------------------

--
--------------------------------------------------------------
  Dr. Martin Doerr              |  Vox:+30(2810)391625        |
  Research Director             |  Fax:+30(2810)391638        |
                                |  Email:mar...@ics.forth.gr 
<mailto:mar...@ics.forth.gr>  |
                                                              |
                Center for Cultural Informatics               |
                Information Systems Laboratory                |
                 Institute of Computer Science                |
    Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas (FORTH)   |
                                                              |
                N.Plastira 100, Vassilika Vouton,             |
                 GR70013 Heraklion,Crete,Greece               |
                                                              |
              Web-site:http://www.ics.forth.gr/isl            |
--------------------------------------------------------------


--
--------------------------------------------------------------
 Dr. Martin Doerr              |  Vox:+30(2810)391625        |
 Research Director             |  Fax:+30(2810)391638        |
                               |  Email: mar...@ics.forth.gr |
                                                             |
               Center for Cultural Informatics               |
               Information Systems Laboratory                |
                Institute of Computer Science                |
   Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas (FORTH)   |
                                                             |
               N.Plastira 100, Vassilika Vouton,             |
                GR70013 Heraklion,Crete,Greece               |
                                                             |
             Web-site: http://www.ics.forth.gr/isl           |
--------------------------------------------------------------

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