Usage scenarios of a semantic-based digital shape workbench

Manolis Vavalis∗1

1 University of Thessaly, Department of Computer & Communication Engineering, GR-38333 Volos, Greece & Centre forResearch and Technology − Thessaly, GR-38500 Volos, Greece.

Motivated by the undisputed emergence of 3D content, this paper presents cases where semantic technologies have the po-tential to be used to build robust real-life solutions out of the AIM@SHAPE Digital Shape Workbench both in its currentand its future forms. We focus on understanding what makes semantic knowledge applications successful in operationalenvironments which involve shapes and present existing and future scenarios on favoring ontology based integration thatsystematically resolves both syntactic and semantic heterogeneity, allowing scientists to concentrate more on their content.

1 Introduction

One of the most exciting possibilities for tomorrows society is the opportunity to use ICT to effectively bridge the real andvirtual world by substituting physical prototypes and experiences with virtual models and simulations. The basic buildingblocks of this effort are 3D shapes which occur and are already used in many different domains. 3D media, or models, aredigital representations of either physically existing objects or virtual objects that can be processed by computer applications.They used to be developed by experts at a significant cost and were usually difficult to manipulate by non experts. Nevertheless,technological advances highly reduced the costs of 3D content acquisition, storage and transmission, making it possibleto deliver and manipulate 3D content and allowing us to predict that in the near future 3D data will be produced also bynon professionals and will represent a huge amount of traffic and data stored and transmitted using Internet technologies.The relevant 3D shape data that should be shared and made available are not only raw data, but worked-out shape models,algorithms implementing a solution for a specific problem, benchmarks capturing the computational and methodologicalcriticalities of a given task, scientific workflows that draw a path between raw measurements, processing and analysis steps,up to the publication of results. We believe it is essential to focus on approaches to facilitate the sharing of the scientificknowledge as a whole, trying to develop ICT-based infrastructures that implement access to knowledge, via advanced servicesand middle-ware layers. The AIM@SHAPE Network of Excellence (www.aimatshape.net) contributed in this effort in severalways with its Digital Shape Workbench (DSW) being probably the most important.

2 The AIM@SHAPE and its digital library workbench

The DSW consists of the data (shapes and tools) repositories, the knowledge management system (ontology & metadata repos-itory), and a number of different ways of discovering, searching and browsing resources (semantic search engine, geometric-based search engine, digital library) [2]. From another viewpoint the DSW consists of a collection of resources (shapes, tools,publications) coupled with knowledge items (domain and common ontologies, metadata for tools and shapes, glossary). Theseresources and knowledge are integrated into a unified DSW interface and all of its components are linked through ontologicalstructures (knowledge technologies for shapes). The main objective of the DSW is to provide an integrated access, includingsearch and retrieval, to highly-valuable scientific knowledge and resources in the field of 3D shape modeling and processing,based on the principles of Service Oriented Architecture through the following services (a) uploading of shape models, tools,and bibliographic references (b) searching (keyword searching and semantic searching), browsing and downloading resources(c) management of resource metadata (i.e. insert/edit/delete metadata) (d) management and maintenance of ontologies and (e)3D geometry-based search engine (allows searching according to shape similarity criteria).

3 Existing and emerging usage scenarios

The DSW has already a direct impact on several application domains. We should first list those associated with the FOCUSK3D project’s efforts that exploits the DSW into the following four domains (see www.focusk3d.eu for more details): (a)Medicine and Bio-informatics; (b) Gaming and Simulation; (c) CAD/CAE and Virtual Product Modeling; (d) Archaeologyand Cultural Heritage [4]. Next we concentrate on few other selective usage scenarios.

Bridging the Gap: A DSW, coupled perhaps with additional ontological support, can provide the foundations for over-coming the historic distinction between systems that are suppose to cooperate and to facilitate interoperability between them.

∗ Corresponding author: e-mail: mav@inf.uth.gr, Phone: +30 24210 74906, Fax: +30 24210 74923

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Existing such gaps, which are mainly due to inherent differences in the semantics, are in Architecture Engineering and Con-struction, Geographic Information Systems, Computer Aided Engineering, Computer Aided Design, Computer Aided Manu-facturing and Product Lifecycle Management (e.g. www.transcendata.com).

Shape Based e-Learning and Training: Current learning standards (e.g. IEEE LOM, IMS, SCORM, CanCore) are tryingto adopt Semantic Web technologies to conquer web-based learning contexts. Furthermore, we note the children’s earlylearning with shapes and the fact that 3D Shape representations are major resources for eLearning applications and already actas learning objects in several disciplines. So, one might safely claim that the AIM@SHAPE (and other semantic-based) DSW,perhaps equipped with an additional instructional ontology layer or facet, could play a crucial role in both e-Learning ande-Training. We could mention here the efforts of the DELOS Association (www.delos.info) on studying the interoperabilityrequirements for the integration of e-Learning applications on top of digital libraries, the fact that semantically enrichedDSWs already playing a crucial role in Science & Engineering courses (for modeling & simulation) and the already proposedplatforms for ontology-driven generation of 3D animations for training and maintenance [1].

e-Shopping for Shapes is a rapidly increasing web activity. There are currently just a few e-shops specifically dedicated to3D shapes (e.g. www.3dexport.com) which they seem to be very popular and financially very successful. They are based onrather naive taxonomies for model submission procedure & metadata organization and their virtual ”show window” is basedmainly only on keyword based queries. Many of these e-shops already face scaling problems. For example, navigation thoughtheir taxonomy leads to a large number of items in no particular order or grouping annoying and confusing the buyers whilekeyword-based searches perform poorly and lead to similar failures. Few e-shops for (thematically restricted) shapes providenon-keyword search engines which unfortunately very often perform even worst. We envision the next generation e-marketsfor shapes as variations of our DSW, capable of offering semantically enriched ”show windows” and intelligent selling agents.

Next Generation Information Systems for GeoSciences: It was rather lately realized that ontology background is indeedneeded to characterize the structure of our physical world i.e., the inter-relationships between the shapes occupying space-time,and the facts and constraints about them. What matters in such an ontology is the way the constituent shapes are put together(structure), their characteristics and the relations between them. In particular Ontology Based Discovery & Integration inGeosciences [3] is an effort to address several significant challenges (e.g. bring disparate datasets through a common webbased smart query system, develop conceptual workflows, reason on, and validate theoretical scenarios, · · · ) and focuses onbuilding a rich 3D model piece-by-piece using available (perhaps incomplete) data by resolving ambiguities and conflicts andinferring interfaces, extreme points, · · · , allowing the user to rely on advanced queries (e.g. For a given region (i.e. lat/longextent, plus depth), return a 3D structural model with accompanying physical parameters of · · · ).

Benchmarking, Algorithm Selection and Peer Review for 3D Models: The majority of the existing repositories fordigital shapes are motivated by the need of supporting benchmarking and evaluation processes. Nevertheless, none of themprovide knowledge-based support for an effortless creation of benchmarks and evaluation workflows and in general they lacka unified framework that ensures quality, completeness and fairness with no ambiguities and misunderstandings. They alsodo not provide an undisputed semantically-based Problem/Algorithm/Tool selection mechanism that assists the user to answerthe generic question ”Which algorithm is applicable, appropriate good, best for my 3D computer graphics problem?”. Asimilar situation appears to the already existing scientific journals [4] that are very much in need of facilities for timely andscholarly publication of 3D models and associated algorithms, programs and (maybe) performance data of shapes.

4 Concluding remarks

3D models are rapidly emerging in many thematic areas where knowledge management support for 3D objects is already verymuch appreciated. Although in their infancy, semantic based integrated platforms like our DSW have the potential to bring anessential contribution to several real operational environments of diverse nature under the unifying concept of shape.

Acknowledgements This paper was partially supported by the EC under the ICT-2007-214993 (FOCUS K3D) contract. The author wouldlike to express his gratitude to his partners in the FOCUS K3D and AIMSHAPE consortia.

References[1] S. Parisi, J. Bauch, J. Berssenbrugge, and R. Radkowski. Ontology-driven generation of 3D animations for training and maintenance.

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3746 of Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Springer, 2005.[3] F. Reitsmaa, J. Laxtonb, S. Ballardc, W. Kuhnd, and A. Abdelmotye. Semantics, ontologies and escience for the geosciences. Computers

& Geosciences, doi:10.1016/j.cageo.2008.03.014, 2008.[4] M. Vavalis. On the impact of knowledge managment of 3D archaelogy and cultural heritance. Virtual Systems and MultiMedia.

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