The structure of a physical behaviour description facility

Many computer simulations, experimental testing and monitoring of physical systems produce vast amounts of quantitative data. These data have always been assimilated by trained and experienced personnel. Human beings use qualitative representations naturally for efficient decision making. An automated system which can provide such qualitative descriptions can be useful in various disciplines for decision support and training. In this paper we describe the structure of such a system that can handle natural language queries to produce descriptions from data generated from structural dynamics simulations. © 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rirights reserved.