Knowledge-directed interpretation of mechanical engineering drawings

A methodology for the interpretation of images of engineering drawings is presented. The approach is based on the combination of schemata describing prototypical drawing constructs with a library of low-level image analysis routines and a set of explicit control rules applied by an LR(1) parser. The resulting system (Anon) integrates bottom-up and top-down processing strategies within a single, flexible framework modeled on the human perceptual cycle. Anon´s structure and operation are described and discussed, and examples of its interpretation of real mechanical drawings are shown