A frame is a collection of attributes and values and can be regarded as an extension of a semantic network. The Mini City node from the semantic network in figure 1.03 could be represented as a frame as follows :
Frame Mini City instance of Car
attribute : number of doors two
attribute : number of seats four
attribute : colour white
attribute : registration number A123 XYZ
attribute : engine size 1000cc
The Mini City frame would inherit attributes from the Car frame with the Mini City values overriding any values for inherited attributes. The use of the frame can greatly simplify a semantic network. Frames have also been incorporated into production rule based systems with frames defining the objects that occur in the rules.
Authored by Serengul Smith
E-mail to:
serengul1@mdx.ac.uk
School of Computing Science Middlesex University
Revised: September 1998