GMEOW Images Module

• IRI: https://blackcatinformatics.ca/gmeow/slices/images
• Tier: extension
• Group: extensions

What This Slice Covers

This slice owns 64 terms and contributes 20 mapping or projection rows. Use it when its terms match the native fact you want to preserve; use the linkage tables to see how those facts leave GMEOW for consumer vocabularies.

Dependencies

• gmeow:slices/documents
• gmeow:slices/kernel
• gmeow:slices/observations
• gmeow:slices/temporal

Consumers

• High-fidelity depiction (regions, scene graphs) atop core MediaObject; the gmeow-image CLI (CLI roll-up design).

Local Map

Examples

Photo Metadata

• Source: slices/extensions/images/examples/photo-metadata.ttl
• GMEOW terms: gmeow:DepictionUsage, gmeow:ExifTag, gmeow:Expression, gmeow:ImageRegion, gmeow:MediaObject, gmeow:Person, gmeow:RegionSelector, gmeow:Work, gmeow:depictionAuthority, gmeow:depictionContext

# SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2026 Blackcat Informatics® Inc. <paudley@blackcatinformatics.ca>
# SPDX-License-Identifier: CC-BY-4.0
#
# Worked example: image metadata at three layers. EXIF technical tags
# (gmeow:hasExifTag) record how the bytes were captured. A gmeow:ImageRegion with
# a typed gmeow:RegionSelector pins WHERE something is in the frame (a fractional
# bounding box). And a gmeow:DepictionUsage makes "this image depicts X" a
# PERSPECTIVAL act, not a bare fact: it records the subject, the context (candid /
# portrait / childhood …), and WHOSE authority asserts the depiction — so the same
# photo can be a "family" depiction to one audience and a "work" depiction to
# another, without either being privileged.
@prefix gmeow: <https://blackcatinformatics.ca/gmeow/> .
@prefix ex:    <https://blackcatinformatics.ca/gmeow/examples/images/> .
@prefix rdfs:  <http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#> .

ex:dana         a gmeow:Person ; gmeow:name "Dana Reyes"@en .
ex:photographer a gmeow:Person ; gmeow:name "Sam Okonkwo"@en .

# --- The image. A MediaObject is a Manifestation on the WEMI spine, so it embodies
#     an Expression realizing a Work (the same backing every published artifact has).
ex:photo a gmeow:MediaObject ;
    rdfs:label       "Team portrait, June 2026"@en ;
    gmeow:embodies   ex:photoExpression ;
    gmeow:hasExifTag ex:exifMake , ex:exifDate ;
    gmeow:hasRegion  ex:faceRegion .

ex:photoExpression a gmeow:Expression ; gmeow:realizes ex:photoWork .
ex:photoWork a gmeow:Work ; gmeow:title "Team portrait, June 2026"@en .

ex:exifMake a gmeow:ExifTag ; gmeow:exifTagId "Make" ; gmeow:exifTagValue "Canon EOS R5" .
ex:exifDate a gmeow:ExifTag ; gmeow:exifTagId "DateTimeOriginal" ; gmeow:exifTagValue "2026:06:01 14:30:00" .

# --- A region of the image: WHERE Dana's face is, by a fractional bounding box.
ex:faceRegion a gmeow:ImageRegion ;
    gmeow:regionOf       ex:photo ;
    gmeow:regionLabel    "Dana" ;
    gmeow:regionSelector ex:bbox .

ex:bbox a gmeow:RegionSelector ;
    gmeow:selectorType  gmeow:selectorTypeFractionalRectangle ;
    gmeow:selectorValue "0.30,0.20,0.18,0.24" .

# --- The depiction as a perspectival act: who is depicted, in what context, by
#     whose authority — not a privileged "this is a photo of Dana" fact.
ex:depiction a gmeow:DepictionUsage ;
    gmeow:depictionImage     ex:photo ;
    gmeow:depictionSubject   ex:dana ;
    gmeow:depictionContext   gmeow:depictionContextCandid ;
    gmeow:depictionAuthority ex:photographer .

Terms

Classes

Properties

Individuals

Linkages

• Rows: 20
• Projection profiles: foaf, iiif, schema-org
• External vocabularies: foaf, iiif, oa, rdf, schema, wd

Guide

Images — contextual depiction, regions, and scene graphs

Slice: https://blackcatinformatics.ca/gmeow/slices/images · tier: extension Who is shown, where in the pixels, and how the parts relate — without a "primary photo".

Most schemas reduce imagery to a photo URL field. GMEOW treats depiction the way it treats naming: as a contextual, attributed, time-scoped claim. The flat gmeow:depicts shortcut (a subproperty of gmeow:isAbout, domain MediaObject) covers the 80 % case; when context, audience, period, or authority must be recorded, promote to the DepictionUsage relator — the exact mirror of NameUsage. That pairing is machine-readable: the module asserts gmeow:depicts gmeow:pairsWith gmeow:DepictionUsage, so tooling knows the flat form and the reified form are the same fact at two fidelities. There is no primary or preferred depiction (Principle 9): co-equal depictions coexist, and a superseded one is suppressed with gmeow:displayable false, never deleted (Principle 10). The slice builds on the WEMI spine — a visual work is a gmeow:Work, the file a gmeow:Manifestation/MediaObject — and exists for its Principle-15 consumer: high-fidelity depiction (regions, scene graphs) atop the core MediaObject, driven by the gmeow-image CLI (CLI roll-up design).

Layer 1 — contextual depiction

gmeow:DepictionUsage

The reified, context-dependent depiction relator — an Observation in the universal claim stack. Mint one per (entity, image, context) tuple: depictionSubject (functional), depictionImage (functional), depictionContext, plus optional depictionAudience and depictionInterval. Perspectival, never global; paired with the flat gmeow:depicts via gmeow:pairsWith.

gmeow:depictionAuthority

The gmeow:Agent that confers or sanctions the depiction in this use — a photographer, an archive, a self-asserting subject. Deliberately non-functional: joint or competing authorities coexist with no privileged claimant (Principle 9), each attributable and confidence-weighted.

gmeow:DepictionContext

The open value vocabulary (Principle 9 — individuals, never subclasses) for how an image shows its subject: work, family, childhood, portrait, candid, self-portrait, event, and so on. A new context is data, not a schema change.

Layer 2 — region encoding

gmeow:ImageRegion

A structural part of an image — the visual counterpart of ContentSegment: a face, a bounding box, a pixel mask. Belongs to exactly one image (gmeow:regionOf, functional; inverse gmeow:hasRegion) and carries a human-readable gmeow:regionLabel.

gmeow:RegionSelector

The encoding descriptor for a region's boundaries: one gmeow:selectorType plus the raw gmeow:selectorValue literal. The canonical superset of W3C Web Annotation selectors, IIIF selectors, and domain mask formats. Attached via gmeow:regionSelector (functional — one selector per region).

gmeow:SelectorType

Open value vocabulary of encoding kinds: SVG path, pixel rectangle, fractional rectangle, polygon, RLE, COCO RLE, DICOM-SEG, pixel mask, Web Annotation fragment. Parsing and coordinate conversion are solver-layer work (Principle 12) — the graph records which encoding was used, never re-derives geometry.

Layer 4 — scene graphs

gmeow:SceneGraphEdge

A reified spatial or semantic relationship between two regions — a gufo:Relator mediating sceneSubject and sceneObject (both functional, both ImageRegion), a sceneRelation, and an explicit gmeow:sceneConfidence decimal in [0.0, 1.0]. Aligns by reference to Visual Genome and OVSR relation strings.

gmeow:SceneRelationType

The open relation vocabulary for edges — leftOf, inside, holding, wearing, riding, sameAs (co-reference), partOf (mereological), and friends. The relation is a value, never a subclass (Principle 9): a new predicate from a new detector is a fresh individual.

Solver layer & projections

The slice models which facts hold; computation lives outside the graph (Principle 12): mask parsing, coordinate-space conversion, scene-graph inference, and IIIF Presentation API 3 rendering (Layer 3 of the design is purely projection — Canvas/Annotation mapping adds no ontology terms). Technical metadata (pixelWidth, captureDevice, colourspace via gmeow:hasReferenceFrame) lives on MediaObject in the documents slice; rights reuse the rights facility; provenance reuses wasGeneratedBy/wasDerivedFrom.

Alignment & dependencies

All alignments are by reference, never import (Principle 5): schema.org ImageObject, IIIF, W3C Web Annotation, W3C EXIF Ontology, XMP, IPTC, and CIDOC-CRM/CRMdig. Depends on kernel, documents (MediaObject), observations (the claim stack DepictionUsage sits in), and temporal (depiction intervals).

EXIF tags (project homepage and language)

gmeow:ExifTag · gmeow:hasExifTag · gmeow:exifTagId · gmeow:exifTagValue

A camera's EXIF metadata is an open, camera-defined set of tag/value pairs. To carry it losslessly — every tag survives an index.ttl → GMEOW → index.ttl round-trip — each tag is a reified gmeow:ExifTag in the schema:PropertyValue shape: gmeow:exifTagId (the tag, "FNumber" → schema:propertyID), gmeow:exifTagValue ("f/2.0" → schema:value), and rdfs:label ("Aperture" → schema:name). Never a fixed property per tag (P9). The meaningful facts (capture device/time, GPS, colourspace) also ride their typed properties; the ExifTag set is the complete, faithful carrier, projected to schema:exifData.

Logo (follow-through)

gmeow:hasLogo

gmeow:hasLogo links an entity to the media object that serves as its logo — its emblematic, identity-bearing image. An organization, software project, dataset, place, or product may carry one (domain gmeow:Entity, range gmeow:MediaObject). It is deliberately distinct from gmeow:depicts: a logo represents the entity rather than picturing it (the gmeow-logo.svg does not depict the ontology), so hasLogo is not a subproperty of gmeow:isAbout — mirroring why schema:logo is separate from schema:image upstream. Non-functional: light/dark, wordmark/glyph, and seasonal variants coexist (P9). Projects to schema:logo and foaf:logo.