Integrating CHGIS with other Gazetteer Standards and Classification Systems

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Integrating CHGIS with other Gazetteer Standards
and Classification Systems
Merrick Lex Berman, Harvard Yenching Institute
PNC ECAI, Guadalajara Dec 2001
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research partners
Harvard Yenching Institute
Fudan University, Center for Historical
Geographical Studies
ACASIAN, Griffith University
Academia Sinica Taipei, Inst for Information
Sciences
sponsor
CHGIS Organization
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Tan Qixiangs Historical Atlas of China
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CHGIS raw input tables
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CHGIS spatial data (boundaries)
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CHGIS spatial data (points)
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CHGIS spatial data (overlay)
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points within boundaries
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thiessen polygons
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1820 changping quota (normalized by area)
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CHGIS raw input tables
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location - point 1 to point 2
placename - Shawmut to Boston
administrative status - township to county seat
feature types dirt road to paved road
what are the temporal variables of places?
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place being tracked over time
independently changing variables
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tracking temporal instances
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each place object has many instances of change
over time
place objects temporal instances
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each placename record may have many sub-types,
such as character sets, transliterations, or
pronunciations
character sets
transliterations
placenames
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Alexandria Digital Library (ADL) Feature Type
Thesaurus
hydrographic features . seas . . oceans . . .
ocean currents
Bureau of Land Management, Taipei NGIS
cartographic elements
feature classification schema
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Alexandria Digital Library (ADL) Feature Type
Thesaurus
physiographic features -cliffs
hydrographic features -aquifers -drainage
basins -streams --rivers ---rapids
feature types - hierarchical model
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each feature instance may have many feature
types
feature types may have many associated feature
types and glosses
associated feature types
glosses
feature types relational model
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a private residence is donated to a temple,
affecting tax revenues both for the building and
the fields under cultivation
at different times the same place object may have
different temporal instances of a particular
feature type
feature types change over time
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a single building may have many functions over
time, recorded with multiple instances of
feature types
temporal instances to track changing features
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tracking a buildings changing feature types
associated feature types
glosses
feature types changes over time
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integrating feature type thesauri
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list of available Feature Type thesauri
1 Alexandria Digital Library Feature Types
(1156 terms)
2 River Research Group Feature Types (435
terms)
3 Taiwan NGIS Feature Types (2000 terms)
4 CHGIS (220 terms)
cross-searching feature type thesauri
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each system classifies its contents
NIMA Classes A Admin Area H Hydro L Land
Area P Pop Place R Road S Spot T
Contour U Undersea V Vegetation
rough classification for interoperability
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hydrographic features search
searching by rough class
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list of available hydrographic Feature Types in
each thesauri
1 Alexandria Digital Library Feature Types
(158 / 1156 terms)
2 River Research Group Feature Types (380 /
435 terms)
3 Taiwan NGIS Feature Types (200 / 2000 terms)
4 CHGIS (37 /220 terms)
comparing contents among thesauri
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evolving interoperability
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Records in the unrelated thesauri
Concordance table between thesauri
concordance table
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• use ADL Feature Types as a basic standard for
  interoperable searching and Unicode (UTF-8)

• specialized thesauri submitted to the testbed
  should include a linktable with
• - Feature Type definition
• - Feature Type Enlgish language gloss
• - Feature Type match to ADL type
• - locale for the Feature Type
• - date range for the Feature Type

3. testbed editor identifies ADL types with high
numbers of submitted specialized sub-types
4. Testbed editor enlists help of submitters to
identify concordances between their own Feature
Types and those in other thesauri
proposed actions
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• use ADL Feature Types as a basic standard for
  interoperable searching and Unicode (UTF-8)

ISO 8601 Date and Time Notation with
extension for older dates

• specialized thesauri submitted to the testbed
  should include a linktable with
• - Feature Type definition
• - Feature Type Enlgish language gloss
• - Feature Type match to ADL type
• - locale for the Feature Type
• - date range for the Feature Type

Open GIS draft suggestion
1) yyyy-mm-ddThhmmss.sss or
1999-08-12T094023.558 Where T Time   2)
Periodic events are indicated with a P then a
value and unit measure, as in   yyyy-mmPunitY
or 1980-06/2000-06/P1M    3) BCE dates take
the letter B as a prefix, so B221 BCE221.
  4) Geologic dates in the distant past take
the letters K, M, G as prefixes, meaning
thousands, millions, and billions of years before
the present, respectively.   K16
16,000 years ago M120 120,000,000 years
ago G3 3,000,000,000 years
ago
3. testbed editor identifies ADL types with high
numbers of submitted specialized sub-types
4. Testbed editor enlists help of submitters to
identify concordances between their own Feature
Types and those in other thesauri
date formats
proposed actions
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CHGIS China Historical GIS Project
website fas.harvard.edu/chgis