A schema mapping technique for XML-based semantic geodata translation

This paper presents a schema mapping technique for XML-based geodata translation/transformation. XML is becoming the universal language for data exchange over the Internet. For geodata exchange, OGC defined the XML-based GML (geographical markup language). Defining XML-based data format alone is not enough for data exchange. Associated techniques are equally important. The proposed schema mapping technique enables to a large extent automatic generation of geodata translator/convertor. Given a pair of source and target data schemas, a user specifies elements correspondence between them in a declarative way. The proposed schema mapping processor takes the schema mapping specification as input and generate geodata translator as output. Due to the automatic generation, semantic reconciliation between source and target schemas is very much facilitated.