From Descriptions to Depictions: A Conceptual Framework

Abstract

People use verbal descriptions and graphical depictions to communicate spatial information, thus externalizing their spatial mental representations. In many situations, such as in emergency response, the ability to translate the content of verbal descriptions into a sketch map could greatly assist with the interpretation of the message. In this paper, we present an outline of a semi-automatic framework enabling seamless transition between verbal descriptions and graphical sketches of precinct-scale urban environments. The proposed framework relies on a three-step approach: NL parsing, with spatial named entity and spatial relation recognition in natural language text; the construction of a s..