Multilevel Approach and Distributed Consistency for Technical Map Interpretation: Application to Cadastral Maps

Abstract

We describe the architecture of a system capable of fully automatic interpretation of images of Frenchcadastral(city map) documents. Our approach is based onmultilevel perceptionswithin hierarchical descriptions of the maps and is guided bya priorimodels of this particular style of maps. Essentially, we attempt to extract and then reconcile several potentially inconsistent “points of view” of the image. To resolve the many types of semantic inconsistency that we encounter, we organize the computation in feedback cycles between high- and low-level processing. Examples of reliable interpretation of complex and noisy images are discussed.