Comments on: CmapTools for concept mapping and OWL authoring

By: t

Thu, 17 Feb 2011 12:36:48 +0000

Lucilia,

CMaps are just drawings. If you open a plain CMap in COE and export it to an OWL/XML file, COE will try. All legal nodes and arcs are exported, the illegal rest is dropped.

You could optimize / clean-up the CMap opened in COE by manually substituting illegal constructs with CMap Ontology templates. They are available from the Public CMap Ontologies Server that, unfortunately, you can’t connect to.

The servers are alhena.ihmc.us and homan.ihmc.us. They can be pinged.
I can’t connect to them either, but it used to work about a year ago.

By: Lucilia

Lucilia — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 22:02:47 +0000

I have been trying to transform my CMaps into Ontologies by using Cmap COE but the version I downloaded doesnot show the Public Ontologies box. I followed all directions to have it added, but I keep on getting the same message: try later. the server may be off line (or something like that). Anyone that could help me by getting my maps and exporting them into OWL?

By: Mike Padgett

Mike Padgett — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 07:37:16 +0000

Hi Valerie, I think you’re right about Protege. It is indeed quite limited in that way. Since I wrote the article, I haven’t used Protege very much because I find that I don’t need to in my field of work. Plus the simplicity of CMapTools means that clients on the business side feel very comfortable working with it.

As to the issue you’re having, the most obvious possibility is that there’s something in the actual markup of the ontology that CMapTools doesn’t like. Perhaps a slight difference in the way the XML is written means that it can’t be parsed correctly and CMapTools isn’t reporting the problem?

By: Valerie

Valerie — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 16:42:57 +0000

I am using Protege to create my ontologies but don’t find it very friendly when trying to view them. So I export to OWL format and then view in CMap COE. Works very well, EXCEPT, if I import an ontology into my project on Protege. Then when I get to CMap to view (by importing the OWL file), the file comes up empty. Any clues re why this would be happening??

By: Web Tourist

Web Tourist — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 16:45:09 +0000

I’ve read a few articles on your site, to help me get started, and I’ve just downloaded CmapTools v4.18. I’ll let you know how it goes…

By: Mike Padgett

Mike Padgett — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 09:08:59 +0000

Oops, I have to admit my error: the version tested for the article was indeed the COE OWL version of CmapTools, not the standard CmapTools release, and I've updated accordingly. Since I wrote this article, I have continued happily to use CmapTools, managing to achieve relatively complex results with it. However, for me it really comes into its own as an ontology editor. A colleague walked by the other day and, being unfamiliar with CmapTools, he asked whether it would generate object-based code like Rational Rose. I wish, I replied, but there's an idea for all you developers out there!

By: Tom Eskridge

Tom Eskridge — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 17:39:52 +0000

Mike,
I’m glad you like the CmapTools software. You might be interested to know that there is an extension of CmapTools called “COE: Collaborative Ontology Editor” that makes importing and exporting ontologies much easier. CmapTools itself will export to XML, but not to OWL. COE will read, edit, and export OWL in a graphical fashion. You can download it at http://coe.ihmc.us

Tom