An explicit OWL representation of ISO/OGC Observations and Measurements

We have developed OWL ontologies for the ISO/OGC model for Observations, and for other standard geographic information schemas (geometry, time, metadata) upon which it depends. Translation from the original UML to OWL follows the ISO 19150-2 rules. The ontologies have been prepared standalone, to respect the ‘upper ontology’ implied by the ISO UML profile and ISO General Feature Model, and thus avoid introducing external bias. Mapping to other ontologies, such as the SSN ontology, can be done subsequently in RDFS and OWL axioms, and maintained as linksets separate from the structure model. A key issue is whether the OWL representation should exactly reproduce the frame-based UML model from the standard, or be an open-world OWL representation of some underlying model. This affects property scoping and object property restrictions. The latter choice requires more interpretation during conversion. Two incompatible ontologies have been developed through following both approaches.