Automatic depiction of spatial descriptions

Abstract

A novel combination of ideas from cognitive linguis-tics and spatial occupancy models in robotics has led to the WIP (Words Into Pictures) system. WIP au-tomatically generates depictions of natural language descriptions of indoor scenes. A qualitative layer in the conceptual representation of objects underlies a mechanism by which alternative depictions arise for qualitatively distinct interpretations, as often occurs as a result of deictic/intrinsic reference frame ambigu-ity. At the same time, a quantitative layer, in conjunc-tion with a potential field model of the semantics of projective prepositions, is used in the process of cap-turing the inherently fuzzy character of the meaning of natural language spatial predications.