Compact Abstractor

The CompactAbstractor generates a simple, compacted model of the enviroment of a given root object. The root may be either a Topic, an Association or an Occurrence.

If an Occurrence is passed as the root object, the Abstractor uses in fact the Topic that the Occurrence belongs to as the root.

If an Association is passed as the root object, the demand is delegated to the CompactAssocAbstractor.

If a Topic t0 is passed (or derrived from an Occurrence), then the following topicmap elements are considered during the abstraction process:

t0 itself
the types that t0 is of.
associations where t0 plays a role in. How the associations are transformed into a model, depends on the given AbstractionContext. Please see the section about Classifying associations for further details.
topics, associations and occurrences that are instances of t0.
associations where t0 is used as a role-defining topic
occurrences that belong to t0

Other characteristics of t0, like subject identity or naming variants are discarded by this abstractor.

The topic in the center

The Topic t0, that is passed as the root object to the abstraction process, is represented by a node of Gestalt Topic. The dataLocator-property of that node represents the resourceLocator of Topic t0. The node is the center of the model. In the following figures the centernode is always indicated by a yellow background. In the descriptions it is refered to as n0.

John in the center of the model

Types

A Topic that represents a type of t0 is modeled as a node of gestalt Topic. The node is connected to node n0 via an outgoing arc of gestalt Instance.

John is of type Person

Instances

Instances of t0 are repesented as nodes of AMGestalt Topic. Node n0 (n0 ist the representation of topic t0) is connected to the instance nodes via an Arc of AMGestalt Instance. The arc starts at n0.

The example topic map contains two cars: A Fiat and a VW

Players

Topics that play the role of t0 in any association are repesented as nodes of AMGestalt Topic. They are connected to n0 as endnodes of an arc of Gestalt Player.

4 topics play the role of children in any association

Occurrences

Occurrences that belong to t0 are repesented as nodes of Gestalt Occurrence. They are connected to n0 as endnodes of an arc. If an occurrence is of a certain type, the arc that it connects to n0 is of Gestalt Class and represents the topic, that constitutes the type of the occurrence. If more than one occurrence of a topic are instances of the same type, they are modelled as several endnodes of one arc.

Two occurrences belong to t0. Both are typed.