THE SCIENCE OF NLG — WEATHER CASE STUDY
Our NLG software can write a detailed 3-day forecast
for 5,000 locations in one minute
Meteorological systems are highly sophisticated with a mass of weather data captured and available
as weather changes happen moment by moment across the world. The biggest challenge is
the highly skilled human effort of first interpreting this raw weather information, and then writing
specific forecasts to inform the general public and industry.
See an example of the Arria NLG Engine’s output below
Since 2009, Data2Text Limited has been working with a leading national weather service and others to embed
the expertise of weather forecasters into the Arria NLG Engine. To date, the Arria NLG Engine has been used to
create several types of weather reporting:
Site Specific: We believe the Arria NLG Engine can be configured to write on-demand, detailed weather forecasts
for any site specific purpose in the world such as docking supply boats and flaring excess gas on offshore
oil rigs in the North Sea, harvesting on a farm, or even for the weather at the beach you want to go to. In most
countries there are tens of thousands of locations of public interest where it would be useful to have a detailed
local forecast but, instead, there are only generic forecasts available for big regions like “the south east”, because
of the time required to write these forecasts.
Now, our NLG software takes our existing weather service client’s complex raw data inputs and can write a detailed
3-day weather forecast for 5,000 locations within a single minute—and can update them instantly. Right
now, our NLG software tackles tasks that would be impossible for forecasters to complete manually. It would
take a forecaster 1.5 months to create the equivalent of our system’s one-minute output.
We envision that the Arria NLG Engine will be used to generate instant, personalised, localised, on-demand mobile
phone content such as our detailed site specific written weather forecasts, to any smart phone user in the
world.
Area Specific: The Arria NLG Engine can write on demand weather forecasts for specific geographic areas,
and we believe it can also write area specific hazard warning such as in the complex process of forecasting for
gritting and other winter road maintenance procedures.
The Core Arria NLG Weather Engine
Weather reports play a key role in marine, aviation, ground transportation, finance, retail, space and defence.
We believe Arria NLG weather reporting technologies will benefit these categories. We are currently working
with our existing national weather service client to develop a user configurable Arria NLG Core Weather Engine.
This Engine creates the potential for a completely new weather forecasting paradigm: an NLG Engine that will
be able to output on demand, detailed, weather reports for any site, for any area, for any purpose, for any period
of time; an NLG Engine with a user-configurable interface that could include:
- Natural Language Output Options that Control:
- The grammatical formation of sentences
- The variety of the language
- Format Options:
Written text, annotated graphs and maps, speech.
- Geographic Place Options:
Site specific forecasts, area wide forecasts, point-to-point forecasts, road and surface temperature forecasts
(used by the road industry and commercial aviation for runway information).
- Window Options:
24 hour forecasts, 2-5 day forecasts, etc.
- Primary Weather Area Options:
Wind, rain, temperature, etc.
- Primary Market Area Options:
Public, Military, Road, Rail, Retail, Construction, Financial, Commercial and Private Air, Marine.
- Delivery Options:
iPad app, iPhone app, SMS, RSS feeds, websites, fax, email.
HEALTH CAREMedical
OIL & GASOptimizing
