Automated computer visualization and interaction with big data

• US 10,558,681 B2
• Filed: 01/25/2017
• Issued: 02/11/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 01/26/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Tyler Technologies Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Socrata, Inc. (Tyler Technologies Incorporated)
• Inventors: Hellman, Karin, Lindhout, Daan, Slemko, Marc, Locke, Jessica, Greenberg, Steven, Williams, Franklin, Rabah, Saf, Ferrari, Giacomo, Antler, Randy, Millstone, Marc, McInnis, Ben
• Primary Examiner(s): Burke, Jeff A
• Assistant Examiner(s): Mari, Fernando M.
• Application Number:
  US15/414,633
• Publication Number:
  US 20170212944A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,112 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/2423 Interactive query statement specification based on a database schema
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/252 between a Database Management System and a front-end application
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/26 Visual data mining; Browsing structured data
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 20/00 Machine learning
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/063 Operations research, analysis or management
• CPC Class Codes: G09B 29/00 Maps; Plans; Charts; Diagrams, e.g. route diagram star maps G09B27/04; devices for holding or supporting maps A47B97/02; for computing purposes G06G1/14, G09B1/16; display boards G09F

Abstract

Embodiments described herein provide enhanced computer- and network-based methods, techniques, and systems for automatically accessing large bodies of potentially disparate data in a compelling environment without the limitations of access provided by spreadsheet systems and in a uniform manner for all types of data. Example embodiments provide an Automated Data Visualization System (“ADVS”), which enables users to access data typically provided by backend systems of organizations in an environment that automatically presents the data using user interface patterns that align with the data. In an example embodiment, the ADVS comprises one or more functional components/modules including an attribute determination logic/engine, a visualization logic/engine, a resizing logic/engine, and a scaling logic/engine in addition to a user interface. Also, in one example embodiment the visualization utilizes a user interface card metaphor to present information.

Claims

1. A computer implemented method in a computing system for automatically presenting a large data set for visualization and/or searching, the data set comprising a plurality of data records related to a designated topic, each data record representable as a row of data and having an associated plurality of attributes, each associated attribute, when present in a data record, representable as an attribute value in a column of data and having a data type, the method comprising:

determining which attributes of the data set are to be presented for visualization based upon the designated topic;

for each determined attribute to be presented,

under control of the computing system, automatically determining, without further user input, based upon the data type of the determined attribute, a particular user interface presentation to display on a display device associated with the computing system,

wherein the user interface presentation is one of a user interface card showing a histogram or distribution chart, a user interface card showing a search input control, a user interface card showing a map, a user interface card showing a bar, column, or pie chart, or a user interface card showing a timeline, and

wherein, when the attribute value is text, a further determination of cardinality of a value for an attribute is made, and when the cardinality is below a threshold value, a respective user interface card presenting a bar chart or column chart is presented and when the cardinality is above a threshold value, a respective user interface card presenting a search input control is presented, wherein the search input control is configured to receive a keyed entry from a user, and wherein the keyed entry is a text string; and

under control of the computing system, automatically generating a visualization of the determined attribute according to the automatically determined user interface card, the visualization including data from each of the plurality of data records that contains an associated attribute value for the determined attribute; and

under control of the computing system, automatically resizing the generated visualizations and presenting the resized visualizations on the display device to show all determined user interface cards on the display at once.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the data set comprise at least tens of millions of data records.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the determining which attributes of the data set are to be presented comprises determining which attributes are most important to the designated topic and wherein the automatically resizing the generated visualization and presenting the resized visualizations presents the determined user interface cards for the determined most important attributes before presenting the determined user interface cards for other determined attributes of the data set.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein the determining which attributes are most important to the designated topic uses at least one of:

a predetermined ordering of attributes, or importance of attributes.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the automatically determining, without further user input, based upon the data type of the attribute value, a particular user interface presentation to display on a display device associated with the computing system, determines that, when the attribute value is numerical, a user interface card showing a histogram or other type of distribution chart is to be presented.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the threshold value is computed as a function of the size of the data set and/or the frequency of occurrence of each unique attribute value of the attribute.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the automatically determining, without further user input, based upon the data type of the attribute value, a particular user interface presentation to display on a display device associated with the computing system, determines that, when the attribute value is a date, a user interface card showing a timeline is presented.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the automatically determining, without further user input, based upon the data type of the attribute value, a particular user interface presentation to display on a display device associated with the computing system, determines that, when the attribute value is a location or a latitude and/or longitude, a user interface card showing a map is presented.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein the automatically determining, without further user input, based upon the data type of the attribute value, a particular user interface presentation to display on a display device associated with the computing system, determines the particular user interface card to present using machine learning techniques.

10. The method of claim 9 wherein the machine learning techniques include at least one of:

k-means clustering, clustering, Bayesian algorithms, or Support Vector Machines.

11. The method of claim 1 wherein the automatically resizing the generated visualizations and presenting the resized visualizations on the display device to show all determined user interface cards on the display at once presents a plurality of rows of users interface cards, wherein each row is configured to display its own number of user interface cards such that the number of cards displayed in each row of user interface cards may be different from row to row.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

in response to receiving an indication that one or more of the presented user interface cards has been deleted or resized, automatically resizing the remainder of the user interface cards already presented on the display screen.

13. A computer-readable memory medium containing instructions that, when executed, control a computer processor to automatically present a large data set having tens of millions of data records for visualization and/or searching, the data set comprising a plurality of data records related to a designated topic, each data record representable as a row of data and having an associated plurality of attributes, each associated attribute, when present in a data record, representable as an attribute value in a column of data and having a data type, by performing a method comprising:

determining which attributes of the data set are to be presented for visualization based upon the designated topic;

for each determined attribute to be presented,

under control of the computing system, automatically determining, without further user input, based upon the data type of the determined attribute, a particular user interface presentation to display on a display device associated with the computing system,

wherein the user interface presentation is one of a user interface card showing a histogram or distribution chart, a user interface card showing a search input control, a user interface card showing a map, a user interface card showing a bar, column, or pie chart, or a user interface card showing a timeline, and

wherein, when the attribute value is text, a further determination of cardinality of a value for an attribute is made, and when the cardinality is below a threshold value, a respective user interface card presenting a bar chart or column chart is presented and when the cardinality is above a threshold value, a respective user interface card presenting a search input control is presented, wherein the search input control is configured to receive a keyed entry from a user, and wherein the keyed entry is a text string; and

under control of the computing system, automatically generating a visualization of the determined attribute according to the automatically determined user interface card, the visualization including data from each of the plurality of data records that contains an associated attribute value for the determined attribute; and

under control of the computing system, automatically resizing the generated visualizations and presenting the resized visualizations on the display device to show all determined user interface cards on the display at once.

14. A computing system for visualization of large data sets comprising tens of millions of data records relating to a designated topic, each data record representable as a row of data and having an associated plurality of attributes, each associated attribute when present in a data record represented as an attribute value in a column of data and having a data type, comprising:

attribute determination logic that is structured to determine which attributes of the data set are to be presented for visualization based upon the designated topic;

visualization logic that is structured to, for each determined attribute to be presented, automatically;

determine, without further user input, based upon the data type of the determined attribute, a particular user interface presentation to display on a display device associated with the computing system,

wherein the user interface presentation is one of a user interface card showing a histogram or distribution chart, a user interface card showing a search input control, a user interface card showing a map, a user interface card showing a bar, column, or pie chart, or a user interface card showing a timeline, and

wherein, when the attribute value is text, further determine a cardinality of a value for an attribute is made, and when the cardinality is below a threshold value, a respective user interface card presenting a bar chart or column chart is presented and when the cardinality is above a threshold value, a respective user interface card presenting a search input control is presented, wherein the search input control is configured to receive a keyed entry from a user, and wherein the keyed entry is a text string; and

generate a visualization of the determined attribute according to the determined user interface card including data from each of the plurality of data records that contains an associated attribute value for the determined attribute; and

resizing logic that is structured to automatically resize the generated visualizations and present the resized visualizations on the display device to show all determined user interface cards on the display at once.

15. The computing system of claim 14 wherein the visualization logic is structured to present attributes as user interface cards in an order of importance to the designated topic.

16. The computing system of claim 14 wherein the visualization logic is structured to present attributes having attribute values that are numerical as a histogram or other type of distribution chart, attributes having attribute values that are textual as a bar or column chart or search input control, attributes having attribute values that include a date as a timeline, and attributes having attribute values that include a location or latitude and/or longitude as a map.

17. The computing system of claim 14 wherein the visualization logic uses machine learning techniques to determine which user interface presentation to display.

18. The computing system of claim 14 wherein the user interface cards are presented on the display device in rows, where each row has a number of user interface cards that may not be the same as other rows.