Ontological Impedance in 3d Semantic Data Modeling

An impedance mismatch exists between spatial data models and spatial ontologies, between the language of geometric representations and the language of specific application domains. We call it ontological impedance. Overcoming ontological impedance is a difficult task, since various problems are involved, like the coherence between the semantic and the geometric levels, the abstraction from various levels of geometric detail, the aspects of knowledge representation that constitute a semantic enrichment of current models. Various aspects have to be integrated in the representation of concepts at the semantic level, like the spatial, the temporal, the functional aspects. Overcoming ontological impedance means representing and reasoning with knowledge at the semantic level, shifting the attention from the geometric level to its conceptual counterpart.