ABSTRACT
Ontology in STK is used as a formalized study of the STK Objects, STK Tools, and the results from the analysis. The word ontology dates back to ancient Greek philosophy. The basic Platonic metaphysical meaning of the word is “the understanding and conceptualization of entities in categories and their generalizations.” However, in the late 1900s, computer scientists such as Dr. Thomas Gruber from Stanford University modified this term as “the conceptualization analysis of objects and relationships in body of knowledge sharing and knowledge acquisition.” In other words, ontology is the study of concepts or objects and their relationships within a domain. The use of ontology captures the data structures derived from the relationships and makes them visible. Dr. Gruber’s work is currently governed by standards within the Resource Description Framework (RDF) and the OWL Web Ontology Language Guide for Computer Science. With STK, we use Dr. Gruber’s definition of ontology to fit within the domain of the Spatial Temporal Information System (STIS) software.
