Ontology and semantic interoperability

One of the major problems facing systems for computer aided design (CAD); architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC); and geographic information systems (GIS) applications today is the lack of interoperability among the various systems. When integrating software applications, substantial difficulties can arise in translating information from one application to the other. In this paper, we focus on semantic difficulties that arise in software integration. Applications may use different terminologies to describe the same domain. Even when applications use the same terminology, they often associate different semantics with the terms. This obstructs information exchange among applications. To circumvent this obstacle, we need some way of explicitly specifying the semantics for each terminology in an unambiguous fashion. Ontologies can provide such specification. It will be the task of this paper to explain what ontologies are and how they can be used to facilitate interoperability between software systems used in computer aided design; architecture, engineering, and construction; and geographic information processing.