<title>An XML-based approach to knowledge base unification for computer-generated actors</title>

Abstract

A serious impediment to robust computer-generated actors (CGAs) is the cost of a knowledge acquisition for the CGA. There are a number of reasons for this difficulty; the chief challenge being the fact that currently each knowledge base is handcrafted for a CGA with little or no re-use of knowledge acquisition activity and the knowledge bases developed for other CGAs. Our research was undertaken to address the knowledge base development cost issue by devising an interoperable and open format for knowledge bases that can be used to represent a knowledge base in a reasoning system independent manner. While the format is reasoning system independent, there is one type of format for each type of reasoning system, the independence is found within each class of reasoning systems; such as fuzzy logic, Bayesian networks, rules, frames, and cased-based reasoning systems among others. In the paper, we will discuss our approach to developing the knowledge base format and our current specification for the format. The foundation for our approach to developing a knowledge base representation format that fosters re-use of the contents of knowledge bases is the eXtensible Markup Language (XML). Below, we review related work as well as provide a brief introduction to XML. We describe our requirements for the knowledge base representation and discuss our approach to developing the knowledge base format and our current specification for the format. We describe how we use the XML language to construct the unified knowledge base representation. The paper concludes with a short summary of the project and suggestions for future work.© (2003) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.