Getting Started with SpotterBase

Installation

You can install SpotterBase from source:

git clone https://github.com/jfschaefer/spotterbase
cd spotterbase
python3 -m pip install -r requirements.txt
python3 -m pip install -e .

If you want, you can test the installation by running the tests:

python3 -m spotterbase.test

Note

On some systems, you may have to use python instead of python3. You should use python 3.10 or higher.

Ways to use SpotterBase

SpotterBase can be used in different ways:

1. As a format: Without using SpotterBase at all, you can use the SpotterBase format for annotations, and exchange them with other people or systems.

2. As a command line tool: SpotterBase provides various commands for pre-processing documents and converting annotations in different formats.

3. As a library: SpotterBase has a lot of functionality for working with annotations and documents.

4. As a framework: SpotterBase can act as a framework for building and running your own spotters.

How can I develop a spotter?

Corresponding to the three ways of using SpotterBase, There are three ways to develop a spotter:

1. Use the SpotterBase command line tools and develop your own spotter as a separate program.

   • Approach:

     1. Use the SpotterBase command line tools to pre-process the documents or download an existing pre-processed corpus. Depending your needs, you may need a custom pre-processing pipeline.

     2. Run your custom spotter over the pre-processed documents and create annotations.

     3. Use the SpotterBase command line tools to convert the annotations to the desired format.

   • Advantages:

     You don’t have to get to know the SpotterBase code base and you don’t have to worry about adding SpotterBase as a dependency. Furthermore, you are free to choose any programming language you want.

   • Disadvantages:

     The pre-processed documents may not contain all the information you need. Furthermore, you miss out on the existing SpotterBase code for running spotters and aggregating results.

2. Develop a spotter using SpotterBase as a library.

   • Approach:

     Iterate over the documents and create the annotations for them. How much of the SpotterBase library you use is up to you.

   • Advantages:

     You get all the functionality of SpotterBase and you can use it in your own code.

   • Disadvantages:

     You have to get to know the SpotterBase code base and have SpotterBase as a dependency.

3. Develop a spotter using SpotterBase as a framework.

   • Approach:

     Implement your spotter as a subclass of spotterbase.spotters.spotter.Spotter class. In particular, you will have to implement a method that takes a document and returns annotations as RDF triples.

   • Advantages:

     You can use SpotterBase functionality for running your spotter over a corpus and aggregating the results.

   • Disadvantages:

     You have to get to know the SpotterBase code base and have SpotterBase as a dependency.