Resumen
Descriptions of the spatial locations of disappeared objects are often recorded in eyewitness records, travel notes, and historical documents. However, in geographic information system (GIS), the observer-centered and vague nature of the descriptions causes difficulties in representing the spatial characters of these objects. To address this problem, this paper proposes a Fuzzy Spatial Region Extraction Model for Object?s Vague Location Description from Observer Perspective (FSREM-OP). In this model, the spatial relationship between the observer and the object are represented in spatial knowledge. It is composed of ?phrase? and ?region?. Based on the spatial knowledge, three components of spatial inference are constructed: Spatial Entities (SEs), Fuzzy Spatial Regions (FSRs), and Spatial Actions (SAs). Through spatial knowledge and the components of FSREM-OP, an object?s location can be inferred from an observer?s describing text, transforming the vagueness and subjectivity of location description into fuzzy spatial regions in the GIS. The FSREM-OP was tested by constructing a group of observers, object position relationships and vague descriptions. The results show that it is capable of extracting the spatial information and presenting location descriptions in the GIS, despite the vagueness and subjective spatial relation expressions in the descriptions.