The Use of Neighbourhood Matching in Constructing Hidden Object Topology

My interest is automatic interpretation of natural line drawings of engineering objects. Such drawings only show that part of an object visible from a particular viewpoint, and the major challenge in inter- preting them is deducing the remaining, unseen part of the topology. Since engineers routinely use sketched drawings as a means of communicating structure, using well-established (if unstated) conventions to deduce the invisible topology, it should be possible to identify these conventions and use them to interpret such drawings automatically. This paper describes a simple method for overcoming the problem of mismatched neighbourhoods, and analy- ses the results which are obtained when this method is incorporated in the construction process.