Technical map interpretation: A distributed approach

This paper deals with the general problem of document understanding. We propose the description of a formal architecture of a device capable of interpreting technical and cartographic documents. This device relies on two main points, i.e, a model of the document and the implementation of a set of 'builders', the aim of which is to progressively construct information of as high a semantic level as that provided by the document drawer. Two main stages are integrated in the reasoning process: the first one consists in constructing the information, through a bottom-up approach. Then, a cycling stage is triggered to solve ambiguities detected by the system and corresponding to inconsistent objects with regard to the document model. In this paper, the whole approach is presented in the context of the French cadaster interpretation. The first implementation has enabled us to quantify the interpretation results and to verify the relevance of the cycling stage.