Ontological Engineering for the Cadastral Domain

The term 'ontology' has been used in many ways and across different communities. In th following we will introduce ontologies as an explication of some shared vocabulary or conceptualization of a specific subject matter. The main problem with the use of a shared vocabulary according to a specific conceptualization of the world is that much information remains implicit. Ontologies have set out to overcome the problem of implicit and hidden knowledge by making the conc eptualization of a domain (e.g. mathematics) explicit. Ontological engineering is thus an approach to achieve a conceptual rigor that characterizes established academic disciplines, like geodesy. Many university courses address more application oriented fields, like cadastral law, and spatial planning, and they may benefit from the ontological engineering approach. The paper provides an introduction to the field of ontological engineering by means of examples from the cadastral domain.