Object Ontology With Justification Graphs for Form-Function Reasoning

We present an ontology of objects, relations among objects, and generic shape representation that supports form-function reasoning. By reasoning from the generic functions of objects to their geometric shape requirements, we deduce the generic shape representation of everyday objects. This is a complex kind of reasoning that combines diverse knowledge sources and principles. We model the results of this reasoning process as a justification graph of individual reasoning steps, which explicitly links the attributes of objects and their relations to the corresponding geometric shape elements. This object ontology uses OWL Full metamodeling techniques to achieve the necessary level of expressiveness while maintaining a generic representation. We give an example for the Table class, showing its decomposition into functions, features, and relations, and its form-function reasoning process.