System and method for interactive visual representation of information content and relationships using layout and gestures

• US 20060117067A1
• Filed: 11/30/2005
• Published: 06/01/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 11/30/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Uncharted Software, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Uncharted Software, Inc.
• Inventors: Wright, William, Cort, Brian, Proulx, Pascale, Schroh, David, Skaburskis, Alex
• Granted Patent: US 8,296,666 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/338 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/34 Browsing; Visualisation therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/40 of multimedia data, e.g. slideshows comprising image and additional audio data retrieval of still image data G06F16/50; retrieval of audio data G06F16/60; retrieval of video data G06F16/70
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0484 for the control of specific functions or operations, e.g. selecting or manipulating an object, an image or a displayed text element, setting a parameter value or selecting a range
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 5/02 Knowledge representation; Symbolic representation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/04 Forecasting or optimisation specially adapted for administrative or management purposes, e.g. linear programming or "cutting stock problem" market predictions or forecasting for commercial activities G06Q30/0202

Abstract

This application relates to information analysis and more particularly to a system and method for interactive visual representation of information content and relationships using layouts and gestures. A visualization tool is provided which facilitates both ad-hoc and more formal analytical tasks as a flexible and expressive thinking environment. The tool provides a space focused on ‘Human Interaction with Information’ and enabling evidence marshalling. Capabilities of the tool include put-this-there cognition, automatic analysis templates, and gestures for the fluid expression of thought and scalability mechanisms to support large analysis tasks.

Claims

1. A system for information analysis comprising:

a data processing system configured to execute a visualisation tool comprising a user interface for marshalling evidence, said user interface configured to;

provide a space within which to visually represent information for visual cognition in accordance with at least one spatial arrangement directed by a user to define said evidence; and

receive user input to define the information comprising information excerpts and analysis content and to direct the visual representing of the information.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the visualization tool comprises a link component for maintaining links between information excerpts and associated analysis content, if any, and respective information sources from which said information excepts originate;

and wherein said user interface is configured to visually represent said links.

3. The system of claim 1 wherein the user interface is configured to provide one or more analytical templates for use by the user, each of said analytical templates defining a particular spatial arrangement within which to arrange the information.

4. The system of claim 3 wherein said visualisation tool is configured to determine automatically similarities in meaning of the content of each of said information and wherein said user interface is configured to automatically arrange the information in the particular spatial arrangement of a one of said analytical templates in accordance with the determined similarities.

5. The system of claim 4 wherein said user interface is configured to define a user-defined analytic template in accordance with user input, said user input providing a plurality of groups of concepts within which information can be placed, concept definitions associated with respective groups for directing a service for determining automatically similarities in meaning of the content of the information to be placed in the groups and a layout for arranging the groups of concepts in said space to provide a spatial arrangement for the information to be arranged.

6. The system of claim 3 wherein said user interface is adapted to selectively switch between one or more views of spatial arrangements of the information, at least some of said views defined by said analytical templates with which a user may explore different evidence marshalling options.

7. The system of claim 1 wherein the user interface is configured to represent the information as objects movable in said space and wherein said user input comprises gestures using a user input device of said data processing system, said user interface adapted to interpret the shape or shape and size of a gesture to interact with said objects according to an action associated with said gesture.

8. The system of claim 7 wherein said user interface is adapted to apply the action to the objects according to the proximity of the respective objects to the gesture in said space.

9. The system of claim 7 wherein said shape is substantially an “

X” and

said action associated with the shape is one of delete an object or delete space between objects.

10. The system of claim 7 where in the shape is substantially a “

ˆ

” and

said action associated with shape inserts space between objects.

11. The system of claim 1 wherein the user interface is configured to represent the information as objects movable in said space and wherein said user interface is adapted to represent said objects in accordance with a user selectable level of detail.

12. The system of claim 11 wherein the user interface is adapted to emphasize a selected object in response to a pointing input of said user, at least one of a magnitude and a duration of emphasis being applied to the selected object in response to a duration of said pointing input.

13. The system of claim 12 wherein the user interface is adapted to persist the emphasis applied to the selected object in response to a user input.

14. The system of claim 1 wherein the user interface is configured to represent the information as objects movable in said space and to visualize a first portion of said space and float a selected object over objects not selected to float in said space, whereby, while moving along a path to visualize a second portion of said space, said objects not selected to float and located along the path are visualized under said selected object.

15. The system of claim 14 wherein the user interface is configure to visually represent the selected object transparently thereby to visualize objects under said selected object.

16. The system of claim 1 wherein the user interface is configured to represent the information as objects movable in said space and to visualize a portion of said space;

and, further wherein said user interface is configured to selectively render a context frame about said portion within which proxy objects are visualized for objects that are not visible in said portion of space but are associated with objects that are visible in said portion.

17. The system of claim 1 wherein the user interface is configured to represent the information as objects movable in said space and, selectively for a particular object, to visualize a radial menu comprising a plurality of slices presenting selectable actions arranged radially about the particular object.

18. The system of claim 1 wherein the user interface is configured to represent the information as objects movable in said space, said objects having one of a plurality of types, and wherein said user interface is configured to permit a user to define an object having an assertion type with which to group other objects to prove a truth or falsity of an assertion associated with the object having an assertion type, said object having an assertion type comprising assertion gates, at least one assertion gate for proving the assertion and one assertion gate for disproving the assertion, through which said other objects are moved to automatically bind respective other objects in accordance with their support for the assertion.

19. The system of claim 18 wherein the assertion gates are adapted to generate a respective count of objects moved through the assertion gates for visualizing with the object having an assertion type.

20. The system of claim 1 wherein the user interface is configured to visualize a plurality of portions of said space and configured to define points of view corresponding to user selected ones of the portions and that invoking any of the points of view selectively visualizes the associated portion of the space.

21. The system of claim 1 wherein the visualization tool is coupled to an information scanning and retrieval component for gathering source document information with which to define information excerpts, said information scanning and retrieval component representing the source document information in user selectable multi-dimensional linked views.

22. The system of claim 21 wherein the visualization tool is coupled via a link selection and data exchange component for maintaining links between respective source document information in the multi-dimensional linked views;

and links between information excerpts and associated analysis content, if any, and respective source document information from which said information excerpts originate; and

wherein the user interface is adapted to visualize the links between information excerpts selected in the space and respective source document information from which said information excerpts originate in the multi-dimensional linked views.

23. The system of claim 22 wherein the visualization tool is coupled to one or more computational linguistic resource services for automatically generating concept maps for concept dimensions or document clusters for clustering dimensions and wherein the user interface is adapted to use said services to analyze information selected from the space by the user to generate a dimension definition for use by the information scanning and retrieval component in the multi-dimensional linked views thereby to re-visualize the source document information.

24. The system of claim 1 wherein the visualization tool is coupled to a data store for persisting the information in accordance with the spatial arrangement.