Model-based Virtual Document Generation

Describes the use of the web as a medium for virtual documents that generate natural language explanations of how things work.

Original Abstract: Virtual documents are hypermedia documents that are generated on demand in response to reader input. This paper describes a virtual document application that generates natural language explanations about the structure and behavior of electromechanical systems. The application structures the interaction with the reader as a question-answer dialog. Each “page” of the hyperdocument is the answer to a question, and each “link” is another question that leads to another answer. Unlike conventional hypertext documentation, the system dynamically constructs answers to questions from formal engineering models.