Le cycle de vie des modles (1)

Model construction is not instantaneous. Let us take an example to

illustrate this.
Suppose you are arriving for the first time in a given town, for
example Seattle, Wa., to attend a conference. The downtown hotel
where you are staying gives you some indications on how to go to
the conference, where to go shopping or dining out in the evening,
etc.
All the actions that you will undertake like going to visit a museum
may be carried out successfully and expediently if preceded by a
planning phase where a model will be built (map of downtown).
In the absence of such a model or with a too imprecise or even
wrong model, the walk to a particular place may take a very long
time.

M. Fredj Ingnierie des modles

Le cycle de vie des modles (2)

As your stay in Seattle goes on, your model of the
area become more and more precise and your travels
to interesting spots take less time.
Your knowledge of the town is being progressively
enriched and updated. The corresponding mental
model you have built is composed of entities (the
Convention Center, the Financial District, the Space
Center, your Hotel, the Art Museum, Pine Street, 1st
Avenue, etc.).
It is also composed of facts that you are constantly
adding, assessing and using like the observation that
3rd Avenue is parallel to 1st Avenue and perpendicular
to Pine street, that Pine street lead to Pike Place
Market and that your hotel is near the intersection of
Pine street and 7th Avenue.

M. Fredj Ingnierie des modles

Le cycle de vie des modles (3)

At some time you may buy a downtown-walking
map. This is a model of previous experience by other
people and you are buying this experience to validate
and to enrich your own knowledge.
As you continue to visit the town, you may get a map
of the public transportation (buses, monorail and
underground). This data will also contribute to enrich
you operational knowledge.
What is interesting is that you will weave the
information contained in different maps (walking map
and public transportation map) by connecting joint
points in the different models.

Of course this is made possible because the different maps are models of the same
system (the city of Seattle). At some time you may even use a bike and find
convenient to use a specialized map indicating recommended routes.

M. Fredj Ingnierie des modles

Le cycle de vie des modles (4)

In the left bottom part of the bike route map,
there is a rectangle area providing the "legend".
This is what we'll call later a meta-model since
it defines the meaning of the various icons
appearing in the model (the map). It's the key
to interpreting the map as a description of the
real territory.
Answering a question about the time it will take
to walk or bike from the Space Needle to Pike
Place Market requires the legend information
that four centimeters on the map corresponds
to 500 meters on the ground. Applying a
shortest path algorithm to the map is then easy
and will lead to the requested answer.

Building a company business information system is a

progressive operation, similar to building a personal map of Seattle.
M. Fredj Ingnierie des modles

Le cycle de vie des modles : rsum

The example maps taken in the previous section may help us illustrating
some key points on modeling. Let us summarize and generalize here some
observations just made that could apply to general models as well as to
maps.
The first idea is that a map is a graphical model of a given territory. Graphics
artifacts may ease cognitive tasks by using elements and spatial relations
among them to re present abstract or concrete facts about a specific portion of
the real or imagined world.
Another idea is that here are several kinds of maps (walking, public
transportation, road map, etc.). Each map has a specific intended usage and is
build for some specific purpose.
The (graphical) language of a map is defined by a legend, which is attached to
the map (loosing the legend may render the map quite useless). The legend is
itself written in a graphical language that is left implicit (lines and boxes
mainly).
Another finding is that maps may be progressively elaborated. At some time a
map may be wrong (Christopher Columbus used wrong maps that he helped to
correct). Maps may be considered as assets that may help to transfer expertise
between different people and different contexts.
M. Fredj Ingnierie des modles

Le cycle de vie des modles : rsum

Usually original models like maps may not be elaborated
automatically, but automatic means may help to build them. An
aerial photograph does not make a good map, but it may help to
elaborate it.
One common idea is that more a map is precise, more useful it
is. This may bear some truth but should be taken with caution.
The writer Jorge Luis Borges records the following story. Two
competing teams of geographer were competing in building
more and more accurate maps of a given country. At one time
one of the team won by providing maps with the exact
dimension of the territory, on a scale of one to one. At the exact
time these maps achieved maximum precision they also lost any
practical utility.
A map represents a given territory but a map is different from
the territory. It is a model of a system.
M. Fredj Ingnierie des modles