[x3d-public] X3D Semantic Web minutes, 22 JUN 2020: accessType solution, planning, papers, progress

[Don Brutzman]

Attendees: Jakub Flotyński, Anita Havele, Don Brutzman

Happy Fathers Day!  (yesterday in US, tomorrow in Poland, someone should write a rule-based query about that...)

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1. Planning

a. We are preparing a paper for Web3D 2020 conference.  We will have a corresponding tutorial to show everyone how X3DUOM creates the X3D Ontology, and how SPARQL can be used for 3D model query.

b. Anita is planning a set of online briefings by all Web3D Working Groups and we are happy to participate.

c. Interesting discussion on paper structure.  We are not only showing how X3D model search can work, but are posing broader challenges for all 3D model search.  This can occur through a combination of: model conversions, metadata mappings, and (hopefully) generalized queries.

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2. X3D Ontology progress

a. Don finally got the accessType subproperty working, by iteratively improving ontology generation and editing/saving using Protege.  Useful technique.

... details ...

b. A minor but annoying bug has crept in:  some blank nodes are getting created unexpectedly.  Debugging continues.

c. Next step now that accessType information is available for every field in X3D scene graph: use SPARQL to query each ROUTE to ensure that both type and accessType information match, both fromNode fromField and toNode toField.

d. Once we look at those rules, we will consider whether these relationships can be expressed within the X3D Ontology itself so that future queries are easier to accomplish.

Note that these checks perform a kind of quality assurance (QA) checking that is difficult to perform on static files without loading them.  Mismatched type/accessType is a common error mode for X3D authoring.

After that, we will look at validation of event animation chains:
	- (optional user select)
	-> TimeSensor
	-> (interpolator, sequencer)
	-> (optional event utility)
	-> (destination node/field)

where each arrow -> indicates a ROUTE carrying an event.

e. Thus there is a progression of query expressiveness and sophistication that is occurring.  We expect other opportunities to arise after this, and will keep track of potential future work.

f. Next challenge: how to convert head/meta elements, individual X3D Metadata nodes, and X3D MetadataSet structures into RDF/OWL.

At that point, when we can adeptly query X3D scene-graph relationships, and further connect metadata information of interest in a semantic manner, we expect to have powerful capabilities for general X3D search.

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3. Journal papers!

We note with pleasure that papers from Web3D 2018 conference which were recommended for subsequent improvement and journal publication are starting to emerge in Springer's _Graphical Models_ journal, which supports Open Access.

* Composing customized web 3D animations with semantic queries
   Jakub Flotyński, Krzysztof Walczak, Marcin Krzyszkowski
   https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1524070319300426
   https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gmod.2019.101052

* Special issues published in Graphical Models.
   Graphical Models for Web3D 2018
   Krzysztof Walczak | Gabriel Zachmann | Jakub Flotyński | Kiyoshi Kiyokawa | Daniel Thalmann

We will continue to follow up on this, and also are looking at journal possibilities for best papers from other Web3D conferences.

Have fun with Semantic Search and X3D!  8)

all the best, Don
-- 
Don Brutzman  Naval Postgraduate School, Code USW/Br       brutzman at nps.edu
Watkins 270,  MOVES Institute, Monterey CA 93943-5000 USA   +1.831.656.2149
X3D graphics, virtual worlds, navy robotics http://faculty.nps.edu/brutzman