From Letters to Pixels

Specifying regions of interest to search 3D anatomical space can be di cult. Ontology-based queries are often imprecise and return extra (unwanted) data. Drawing regions of interest in graphical 3D representations of a model organism in principle allows for high precision, but user interfaces can be awkward to use and time consuming. In this poster we promote the use of spatial descriptions as an alternative approach. Spatial descriptions take advantage of existing ontological spatial information, such as in anatomy ontologies and spatial relations ontologies, e.g. BSPO, on the one side and the spatial information embedded in voxel-based representations of anatomy and other spatio-temporal data, e.g. in-situ gene expression patterns, on the other.