Visual Reasoning with Graphs
Yusuf Pisan · 1994
Understanding diagrams is an important part of human cognition. Computer programs need to understand and reason using diagrams to communicate effectively with people. This paper explains how line graphs can be interpreted in a domain independent manner. We present a computer program called SKETCHY that reasons about physical phenomena visually by using line graphs. SKETCHY can interpret graphs to recover functional relationships, answer comparative analysis questions and generate qualitative descriptions using geometric models. 1 Introduction People use diagrams to solve problems, to give explanations, to summarize information and to represent spatial relations. Computer programs that can represent, interpret and reason with diagrams will have a great impact on education, cognitive science and artificial intelligence. By making spatial relationships explicit, diagrams can reduce the amount of search and inference required[12]. Diagrams serve both as devices to aid in visualization of t...