Finding hyper-structure in space: spatial parsing in 3D

1 January 2001

journal article
research article
Published by Taylor & Francis in New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia

Vol. 7 (1) , 153-183
https://doi.org/10.1080/13614560108914731

Abstract

Spatial parsers augment spatial hypermedia systems by letting the computer perceive the informal -but visually apparent - groupings formed by humans working with a spatial hypermedia tool. A number of research systems implementing 2D spatial parsing have been described in recent years. This paper extends spatial parsing to 3D and describes an implementation of a tailorable 3D spatial parser for the Topos system: a 3D information organization tool for use on desktops, interactive whiteboards and tables. The parser maintains a proximity graph of the heterogeneous 3D objects and applies structure experts and global repression and reinforcement techniques to this graph to find structures. A number of issues pertaining to 3D parsing as opposed to 2D parsing are discussed. The paper also presents a simple and efficient 2D parser for 3D scenes and compares it to the true 3D parser.

Keywords

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