UMLtoOWL: Converter from UML to OWL
General information
The UMLtoOWL tool converts extended Ontology UML Profile (OUP) models in XML Metadata Interchange (XMI) format to The Web Ontology Language (OWL) ontologies. The tool is implemented by using eXtensible Stylesheet Language Transformation (XSLT). With UMLtoOWL we do not need to modify the existing UML tools. A UML tool can export an XMI document that an XSLT processor (e.g. Xalan Java 2) can use as input. An OWL document is produced as the output, and this format can be imported into a tool specialized for ontology development (e.g. Protégé) where it can be further refined. The tool can not covert UML models without OUP stereotypes. Please, take a look at the examples given as an illustration for building your own OWL ontologies.
This work is a part of the Good Old AI research effort to develop an MDA based ontology infrastructure.
Practical details
The converter is only tested on the following tool versions:
- MagicDraw v9.5 (UML XMI 1.4 produced with Neatbeans' MDR)
- Poseidon for UML, Community Edition v4.0 (UML XMI 1.4 produced with Neatbeans' MDR)
- Protégé v3.2
- XSLT processors: Xalan Java 2 and XML Spy 5.0 (internal XSLT processor)
Important note: No other tools are used in testing and no guaranities are provided that the converter would work with either newer version of the above mentioned tools or some other UML or OWL tools.
Downloads
- UMLtoOWL (xslt)
- An empty Poseidon for UML document (zuml)
- The document contains all OUP stereotypes that are necessary for developing OUP ontologies in Poseidon for UML
- Ontologies:
- Documents with zuml extension can be extracted as regular zip archives
Getting started
In order to use UMLtoOWL converter you need an XSLT processor. Here we give an example how to use Xalan Java 2 XSLT Processor :
java org.apache.xalan.xslt.Process -in InputDocument.xmi -xsl UMLtoOWL.xslt -out OutputDocument.owl
- org.apache.xalan.xslt.Process – Java class that comes with the standard Java 2 v1.4 distribution.
- InputDocument.xmi – OUP ontology in the UML XML format (e.g. wines.xmi)
- UMLtoOWL.xslt – UMLtoOWL converter
- OutputDocument.owl – output OWL ontology (e.g. wines.owl)
References
- Djurić, D, Gašević, D., Devedžić, V. , “Ontology Modeling and MDA,” Journal on Object Technology, Vol. 4, No. 1, 2005 (forthcoming).
- Djurić, D, Gašević, D., Devedžić, V. , “MDA-Based Ontological Engineering,” In Chang, S. K. (Ed.) Handbook of Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering, Vol. 3, World Scientific Publishing Co., Singapore, 2004 (forthcoming).
- D. Djurić , “ MDA-based Ontology Infrastructure,” International Journal on Computer Science and Information Systems , Vol. 1, No. 1, 2004, pp. 91-116 (pdf).
- Djurić, D, Gašević, D., Devedžić, V., Damjanović, V., “MDA Development of Ontology Infrastructure,” In Proceedings of the IADIS International Conference Applied Computing, Lisbon, Portugal, 2004 pp. II-23-II-26.
- Djurić, D., Gašević, D., Devedžić, V., Damjanović, V., “A UML profile for OWL ontologies,” In Proceedings of the Workshop on Model Driven Architecture: Foundations and Applications, Linköping University, Sweden, 2004 ( forthcoming ).
- Gašević, D., Djurić, D, Devedžić, V., Damjanović, V., “Converting UML to OWL Ontologies,” In Proceedings of the 13 th International World Wide Web Conference , NY, USA, 2004, pp. 488-489 (pdf).
- D jurić , D., Gašević , D., Devedžić, V. , Damjanović , V., “UML Profile for OWL,” In Proceedings of the International Conference on Web Engineering , Munich, Germany, 2004 (forthcoming).
- Gašević, D., Djurić, D, Devedžić, V., Damjanović, V., “UML for Read-To-Use OWL Ontologies, ”In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference Intelligent Systems , Vrana, Bulgaria, 2004 (forthcoming).
- Gašević, D., Devedžić, V., “Reusing Petri Nets through the Semantic Web,” In Proceedings of the 1 st European Semantic Web Symposium, Heraklion, Greece, 2004.
- Gašević, D., Damjanović, V., Devedžić, V. , “Applying MDA Standards in Ontological Engineering,” In Proceedings of the 6 th International Conference on Information Technology, Bhubaneswar, India, 2003, pp. 193-196.
- Djurić, D., Gašević , D. and Devedžić , V., "A MDA-based Approach to the Ontology Definition Metamodel," In Proceedings of the 4 th International Workshop on Computational Intelligence and Information Technologies ,Nis, Serbia and Montenegro, 2003, pp. 51-54 (pdf).
- Gašević , D., Damjanović , V. and Devedžić , V., "Analysis of MDA Support for Ontological Engineering , In Proceedings of the 4 th International Workshop on Computational Intelligence and Information Technologies ,Nis, Serbia and Montenegro, 2003, pp. 55-58 (pdf).
FAQ
Q: Can the converter transform UML class diagrams to OWL?
A: Yes provided that UML class diagrams are strictly written in the Ontology UML profile. UML class diagrams without the Ontology UML profile stereotypes and tagged values can not be transformed to OWL.
Q: Can the converter transform UML activity diagrams to OWL?
A: No. It only supports UML class diagrams, which are strictly written in the Ontology UML profile.
Q: When do you plan the next version of the converter?
A: Unfortunately, this is very an uncertain event. This was a research project that was completed in 2004, but we kept updating it utill May 2006. Due to limited time and all other constraints we can not promise any soon updates. However, we will very much appreciate if you update the converter and share it with the community to be posted on this webpage. You contribution will of course explicitly be acknowledged on this webpage. You may also post the revised version of the converter to your own website provided that you let us know about it, so that we can link to your URL from this page. The community will definitely appreciate your contribution :-).
Q: Is the converter shared under GNU General Public License?
A: Yes.
Contact
Contact information: Dragan Gasevic
.