Author Topic: OWL, VOM and UML Profile (Read 12876 times)

don work · « **on:** January 13, 2010, 12:41:57 pm »

Hi,

I noticed on some web sites that EA was planned to have support for OWL using VOM (Visual Owl Model, or some such) and a UML profile from OMG by the end of 2009.

Is is available yet? If so, where-so?
On the way?
Abandonned?

Don

pebran · « **Reply #1 on:** January 13, 2010, 09:54:36 pm »

I certainly would appreciate an OMG OWL profile soon.

And please remember to make the profile OWL 2 compatible. It would even be acceptable to restrict the implementation to the OWL 2 QL profile if this speeds up the process.

/Peter

herberts · « **Reply #2 on:** January 14, 2010, 02:03:11 am »

The OWL / RDF profiles would be of high importance to my work too.

I tried to import the OMG profiles - http://www.omg.org/spec/ODM/1.0/ .

This did not work without modifications.
When I did the modifications I could load the stereotypes but they were no longer part of profiles.
Therefore I created a dummy profile and moved the stereotypes to it.
The result was not encouraging.

Next step I purchased MagicDraw which could not load the original OMG files either. But the MagicDraw support team could send the original projects. The result: The contents of the import in EA is correct, with the awaited difference that it is not correctly assigned to existing stereotypes like "class".

Will Sparx work on that issue or will someone have to do the giant work to create the profile by comparison with what can be seen in MagicDraw?

Herbert

don work · « **Reply #3 on:** January 14, 2010, 02:54:43 pm »

Is there a specificationof the Enterprise Architect UML Profile XML format?
I might be able to find some time to do a little work on this.
I tried reverse engineering the four EA UML Provile .xml files available on the web. Reasonable success, but strange results in EA (see next posting). But I'd rather work to a spec if I am going to put anyeffort into it. Would hate to have to throw it out later.

Don

don work · « **Reply #4 on:** January 14, 2010, 03:09:05 pm »

A bit of background-

I have migrated my career from solutions architect to enterprise architect, but am constantly dissappointed by teh lack of precision in the ea world. Work is currently squabbling over which tool to use to develop a model repository.

After training in TOGAF and FEAF, and experience with the MAgic Quadrant #1 tool, and arguments about reference models vs. architectures etc., I have come to one simple conclusion:-
use Information Archtiecture standard terminology. EA terminology is immature. The obvious candidates are Taxonomies and Ontologies,
with RDF and OWL being way out in front. I am confident that with them I can model just about anything with precision.
The trouble is my eyes and brain fail trying to read XML endlessly.
I want visual version. The obvious solution - UML Profiles for RDF and OWL.
It looks like I am right on the bleeding edge with this. If anyone can point me at an OWL/UML working solution, please let me know.
(And I still have to convince the rest of work to go this way. Bah.)
Don
PS. The Gartner MAgic Quadrant #1 tool sucks bigtime.

herberts · « **Reply #5 on:** January 14, 2010, 06:11:04 pm »

so far we just have used UML Tools to model software and OWL / RDF Tools (like Protégé, Swoop, TopBraid Composer, ...) to model data structure and knowledge.

The reason for using an UML Tool to model OWL is the hope to get a platform which allows for different representations of our models:
UML --> serialization to OWL / RDF
UML --> serialization to .XSD /.XML
UML --> TM

we also had a look on the Eclipse plugins for that purpose:

http://www.eclipse.org/m2m/atl/usecases/ODMImplementation/
and
http://www.topquadrant.com/products/TB_Composer.html together with the UML2 plugin http://www.eclipse.org/modeling/mdt/?project=uml2

but I also experienced a lot of things which do not work as awaited in that world.

The conclusion: I am not so sure whether our intention is just theoretically nice or not.

Herbert

pebran · « **Reply #6 on:** January 15, 2010, 03:19:37 am »

Quote

I tried to import the OMG profiles - http://www.omg.org/spec/ODM/1.0/ .

This did not work without modifications.

What were the modifications you made? I have never been able to import the xmi (neither of the two available). Instead I have startet developing my own OWL 2 profile plus transformation to OWL/XML. Quite a lot of work so it certainly would be nice if Sparx would help out here.

/Peter

herberts · « **Reply #7 on:** January 15, 2010, 05:53:14 pm »

I introduced a model and one packaged element before the line starting with <profile.... :

<uml:Model xmi:type="uml:Model" name="EA_Model" visibility="public">
<packagedElement xmi:type="uml:Package" xmi:id="EAPK_3466B606_3DF9_4440_B7E2_55E44FABA47E" name="OWLasUML" visibility="public">

so you also need this at the end:
.......
</packagedElement>
</uml:Model>
</xmi:XMI>

then I changed the profiles (OWL and RDF) to packaged Elements:

<packagedElement xmi:type="uml:Package" xmi:id="EAPK_5B1C5D75_36D2_43e8_97E8_2A1CE5194F0C" name="OWL" visibility="public">

(all the EA - GUIDS were taken from an empty EA-dummy project)

I also changed the MagicDraw header to an EA header, but I think this was not really necessary.

@peter: can you send me the profile ?

Herbert

herberts · « **Reply #8 on:** January 15, 2010, 06:06:08 pm »

Additionally:

It was not difficult to copy the imported elements to a created profile. But then the connections to existing stereotypes were missing, as they can be seen when loading the profile into MagicDraw.(the correct profile, - which I got from the MagicDraw support center)

I think that a lot of other information was lost too.

Herbert

pebran · « **Reply #9 on:** January 15, 2010, 09:36:54 pm »

Quote

@peter: can you send me the profile ?

If I manage to create something worth looking at/working with before Sparx delivers a solution; sure, I can give you a copy. But it may take a while. I have to finish another project first.

/Peter

pebran · « **Reply #10 on:** January 15, 2010, 09:41:22 pm »

Haven't this tread been placed in the wrong forum? Wouldn't we have a better chance of getting the attention of Sparx if this tread was placed in "Suggestions and requests"?

/Peter

herberts · « **Reply #11 on:** January 15, 2010, 09:57:39 pm »

fine - can we move it there?
I wouldn't even mind to reenter the text - if you start a thread at "suggestions and requests" - simply tell me

herbert

Paolo F Cantoni · « **Reply #12 on:** January 15, 2010, 11:06:03 pm »

Quote

Haven't this tread been placed in the wrong forum? Wouldn't we have a better chance of getting the attention of Sparx if this tread was placed in "Suggestions and requests"?

/Peter

It actually doesn't matter where you put it on the forum... It gets the same attention from Sparx.

What DOES get Sparx's attention is submitting formal Feature Requests (by a large number of users) using the formal process in the links below...

HTH,
Paolo

herberts · « **Reply #13 on:** January 15, 2010, 11:11:19 pm »

So we have got two tasks:
(1) select a common name for that feature - proposed name: OMD-profile

(2) find as many people as possible to support that feature request

Herbert

pebran · « **Reply #14 on:** January 16, 2010, 12:06:56 am »

Quote

(1) select a common name for that feature - proposed name: OMD-profile

If you meant 'ODM-profile' then yes this could be ONE of the profiles we would need. But since this is a metamodel intended to provide a common foundation for ontology modeling and mapping between modeltools we will need to be more specific. The ODM specification includes models for use of RDF, RDFS, OWL, Topic Maps and Common Logic.
On the top of my wish list are models using OWL 2. I would therefor propose that Sparx develop (in that order) :

UML-profile for OWL 2

UML-profile for ODM

As I wrote previously I would even be happy to see the subset of OWL 2, specificly the OWL QL profile - if that would speed up the process.

Feel free to add to the list

/Peter

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