Describing Topological Relationships in Words: Refinements

Abstract

In earlier work, we introduced a method for generating linguistic descriptions of the topological relationships between two-dimensional objects. The input to the system is a pair of rasterized objects and the output is a set of propositions about their spatial relationships expressed in natural language. The method relies on finding one or two Allen relations that best describe the relationships along a direction of major object interaction. In this paper, we address some of the issues related to the use of Allen relations for describing two-dimensional object configurations, and we propose two extensions in order to solve problems encountered in the original algorithm. Global subsethood-based information is used to suppress counterintuitive descriptions and an ancillary method for generating alternative descriptions is introduced.

Spatial Relations Modeling Based on Visual Area Histogram

“…At present, F histogram is becoming a study hot point for its advantages, and many improved methods and applied research have constantly emerged. Matsakis [19] proposed Allen-F histograms to extend F-histogram to the representation of topological relations; Ni [20] reduced the time complexity of F histogram from O (KN√N) to O (NlogN); Matsakis and others [21][22][23][24] proposed language description method of spatial directional relations, language description method of topological relations, and language description method of spatial position relations of moving image, and object location method based on histogram.…”

Speaking with spatial relations

“…Ultimately, only a single direction was considered, and in some cases, important topological information was not taken into account. Wawrzyniak et al (2005) proposed some simple solutions to eliminate the counter-intuitive descriptions. In this paper, we revisit the work presented in Matsakis et al (submitted) and Wawrzyniak et al (2005), and propose a comprehensive system which corrects the problems encountered.…”

“…Wawrzyniak et al (2005) proposed some simple solutions to eliminate the counter-intuitive descriptions. In this paper, we revisit the work presented in Matsakis et al (submitted) and Wawrzyniak et al (2005), and propose a comprehensive system which corrects the problems encountered. Allen (1983) introduced a set A of 13 mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive relations to represent knowledge about time intervals: A = {<m,o,s,fi,d,eq,di,si,f,oi,mi>}.…”

“…. Here, we focus on two of them: the primary direction θ r and the directional acuteness a r (Matsakis et al, submitted;Wawrzyniak et al, 2005). Put simply, θ r is the direction where r is most prominent.…”