Sparx Systems Forum

Enterprise Architect => General Board => Topic started by: adanecito on April 09, 2021, 09:50:18 am

Title: Ontology support limited to UML?
Post by: adanecito on April 09, 2021, 09:50:18 am

Hi,
I am trying to understand the Ontology support in EA. I understand UML can get exported as OWL and RDF? What about other diagrams such as business ones? We may get a requirement to export diagrams as OWL or RDF to input into Essentials EA which takes Ontology objects.

Thanks!

Title: Re: Ontology support limited to UML?
Post by: Sunshine on April 10, 2021, 07:30:49 am

As I understand it you can only export OWL or RDF from Sparx EA if you have used the ODM MDG profile to create the ontology. Not sure what you mean by "other diagrams such as business ones?" Are you referring to BPMN business process diagrams or ArchiMate Business diagrams for example, in which case you'd have to use either XMI, ArchiMate model exchange file.

These links may help shed more information on what you are seeking.

https://sparxsystems.com/enterprise_architect_user_guide/15.2/model_domains/mdg_technology_for_odm.html (https://sparxsystems.com/enterprise_architect_user_guide/15.2/model_domains/mdg_technology_for_odm.html)
https://sparxsystems.com/enterprise_architect_user_guide/15.2/model_domains/archimate.html (https://sparxsystems.com/enterprise_architect_user_guide/15.2/model_domains/archimate.html)

Title: Re: Ontology support limited to UML?
Post by: adanecito on April 10, 2021, 07:56:15 am

Hi Sunshine.
Very glad you asked. I am trying to avoid having different domain architects use the same language when there are existing languages for their domains.

So what I am hoping for is they stay in their language of choice in Enterprise Architect then export in OWL or RDF for another tool. I read an old Enterprise Architect manual
and was not sure that could be done.

Thanks and I hope that helps. :-)

Title: Re: Ontology support limited to UML?
Post by: Sunshine on April 10, 2021, 11:50:14 am

Yes that sounds reasonable as each architect for a particular domains will have their preferred modelling notation. Its a losing battle trying to get them to change. I'm actually doing a similar thing by using ArchiMate at a high level then for more detailed level mixing in UML, BPMN etc.
Presumably you wanting to export to another tool for some reason. Not clear why though perhaps its for publication in which case you could look at cloud pro server or prolaborate.
I don't use ODM but as I undertstand it I believe that only the models using ODM modelling notation can be exported using OWL or RDF. For other domain languages such as BPMN, UML etc you probably need to use some other mechanism(s) as mentioned earlier like XMI.