Ontogator: Combining View- and Ontology-Based Search with Semantic Browsing
Eero Hyv, Samppa Saarela, Kim Viljanen, Eero Hyvönen · 2003
We show how the benefits of the view-based search method, devel- oped within the information retrieval community, can be combined and extended with the benefits of ontology-based annotations and search, developed within the Semantic Web community. As a proof of the concept, we have implemented an ontology- and view-based image retrieval and recommendation browser Ontoga- tor. Ontogator is innovative in two ways. Firstly, the RDFS-based ontologies used for annotating image metadata are used in the end user interface to facilitate view- based image retrieval. The views provide the user with a search function and means for getting useful overviews of the contents in the repository. Secondly, a semantic browsing function is provided by a recommender system. This sys- tem enriches instance level image metadata by the ontology and provides the user with links to related relevant images. The notion of a semantically relevant link is specified in terms of logical rules. To illustrate and discuss the ideas, a practical application of Ontogator to a photo repository of the Helsinki University Museum is presented.