Portable self-describing representations of measurements

Abstract

A computer-implemented system and method creates and stores measurement statement objects representing complete statements of measurement. Each measurement statement object represents a measurement, such as “the left wing of the F-16 aircraft has a span of 36 m,” and contains a value object, an aspect object, and an entity object. The value object represents a value of the measurement (such as 36 meters) and the aspect object represents an aspect of the measurement (such as span). The value is a value of the aspect of the measurement. The entity object represents an entity (such as the left wing of an F-16 aircraft) measured by the measurement. The aspect of the measurement is an aspect of the entity measured by the measurement Jvln. Measurement statement objects may be created by parsing text describing measurements. Operations including computations, validation, searching, and reporting may be performed on measurement statement objects.

What is claimed: 
     
         1 . A method for representing a measurement of an aspect of a physical object as a measurement statement about the physical object and including the measurement statement in host electronic content, the method comprising:
 parsing at least the measurement statement to electronically represent the measurement statement of the physical object as a measurement statement object including a plurality of computer-processable data objects comprising:
 an entity object representing the physical object; 
 an aspect object representing the aspect of the physical object for which the measurement is made; and 
 a value object representing a value of the measurement made on the aspect of the physical object; and 
   including the measurement statement for the physical object as a text entity in the host electronic content, wherein:   a human reader of the host electronic content can read the text entity to understand the measurement statement;   the measurement statement is retrievable on command separately from other content in the host electronic content;   the host electronic content is not a compilable programming language; and   the plurality of computer-processable data objects of the measurement statement object electronically representing the measurement statement facilitate at least one of computation, validation, searching, and reporting relating to the measurement of the aspect of the physical object, and   
       wherein:
 the physical object has a kind and a part; and 
 at least a portion of the measurement statement corresponding to the entity object is formatted as a computer-processable structured resource descriptor (SRD) comprising: 
 an entity identifier identifying the physical object; 
 and at least one of:
 a first operator specifying the kind of the physical object; and 
 a second operator specifying the part of the physical object, and 
 
 
       wherein the SRD further comprises:
 a third operator specifying the aspect of the physical object for which the measurement is made; 
 an aspect identifier identifying the aspect of the physical object for which the measurement is made; and 
 a value identifier identifying the value of the measurement of the aspect of the physical object, and 
 
       wherein:
 the first operator specifying the kind of the physical object is a colon “:”; 
 the second operator specifying the part of the physical object is a backslash “/”; 
 and the third operator specifying the aspect of the physical object is a period “.”, and 
 
       wherein the SRD further comprises:
 a kind identifier identifying the kind of the physical object; 
 and a part identifier identifying the part of the physical object, 
 such that the SRD has the form:
 “entity identifier:kind identifier/part identifier.aspect identifier=value identifier”.