Meaning of "Here" changes the idea of whole procedure or / not?

Question

Here is my paragrah and is written under sub heading feature extraction.

As most roof planes are planar, raw points are segmented using a Hough-based approach (AAA, 2004). Here, a rule-based classification step described by BBB (2007) is adapted to classify planar segments as terrain and non-terrain. Assuming that any complex roof could be described by its primitive shapes, constraints are enforced to extract roof segments from the classified non-terrain segments.

My question is "Here" is referring to the first sentence or for the whole process of feature extraction. (first sentence tells the first step of feature extraction procces. and in the second sentence, it says next step which is independent from 1st step).

give me your comments as I can think to leave or to keep the Here in my text.

Answer 1

I'm speaking with no understanding of the processes described, so take this with a grain of salt. ...

Here will be generally understood to mean “at this point” in the process; but the question is just what point is being identified?

I would ordinarily take here to refer to the action of the first sentence: segmenting raw points. This reading would imply that classifying planar segments happens at the same time as segmenting raw points—or is possibly even the same thing as segmenting raw points.

Your parenthesis, however, seems to say that these two steps, segmenting and classifying, are distinct and consecutive. Here may imply that, but it does not necessarily do so; on the contrary, the ‘default’ is the one given in my preceding paragraph.

In writing generally, and highly technical writing in particular, the Adamantine Law is that “Whatever can be misunderstood will be”. Consequently, you must make every effort to avoid any possible ambiguity. You would do better to use some other adverb than here. If you mean that the two steps happen at the same time, say so explicitly:

As each segment is identified it is classified as terrain or non-terrain using an adaptation of a rule-based classification step described by BBB (2007).

If you mean that the two steps are consecutive, then say that explicitly:

When all segments have been identified they are classified &c.

In either case, put what you do—classify—first, then explain how you do it, just as you did in the first sentence. You are describing a process, so keep that in the foreground and background your methodological sources.

(Besides, adapting the BBB classification doesn’t take place here under either reading; it must be presumed that you performed the adaptation some time before you followed the procedure you are describing!)

Answer 2

Is this some kind of scientific or technical paper? I would take "Here" to mean "In this paper", because that's often how it's used in scientific publications.

As someone who reads scientific papers, I would take your first sentence to be a simple restating of the usual procedure used on simpler roofs, and AAA is the citation. I would understand your second sentence to mean: "This paper will demonstrate how to adapt the rule based classification step previously described by BBB to classify planar segments as terrain or non-terrain." And I would figure that your adaptation of BBB's algorithm is meant to replace the use of AAA's method on those roofs whose trickiness and unsuitability for the AAA method were described in a previous paragraph, and that your new algorithm is the point of your paper, or at least, the point of this part of the paper.

If all of that is what you meant, then you wrote it fine.

Answer 3

First, I'm not sure if this question is appropriate for English Language Learners due to the complex technical nature. Also, it seems you may be writing for publishing, which may further constrain or dictate the style and formality?

After (painstaking) analysis, I think this is what you intend, simplified (and liberal use of assumptions to ground this paragraph into some tangible meaning):

1. In my first step, I use the Hough method which is a common way to convert satellite imagery into a bunch of rectangles each representing tiny pieces of angled planes.
2. For the 2nd step, I have adapted the BBB method to determine if each rectangle-plane derived from step #1 is terrain or non-terrain.
3. The 3rd step is to identify building rooftops among the non-terrain rectangles.

Like others have said, the use of "here" is confusing. I thought it was referring to what BBB did, as in, "here, BBB used the previous and incorporated their stuff".

The problem you're running into is that "here" can be used exactly the way you want to use it in some situations. But the complexity of your sentence destroys the reference. Yes, you can say, "here, we introduce the idea of nonviolent protest as a metaphor for the main character's motivations..." or "here, we use the inverse of the conjugate to simplify the equation...". I think that's the kind of "here" you want.

But there is also, "here, the main character can only have two options..." which is using "here" to refer to "the following thing". And that's how I read it in your original. I might write it like the following, as a least-modification-version of your original:

As most roof planes are planar, raw points are initially segmented using a Hough-based approach (AAA, 2004). Next, an adaptation of the rule-based classification step described by BBB (2007) is used to classify the preceding planar segments as terrain and non-terrain. Finally, assuming that any complex roof could be described by its primitive shapes, constraints are enforced to extract roof segments from the classified non-terrain segments.

However, I really liked StonyB's above reference to the Adamantine Law, so I upvoted his answer for that! I would make it dummy-clear and say something like first step, second step, third step or something like that.