System and methods for providing statstically interesting geographical information based on queries to a geographic search engine

• US 20080010262A1
• Filed: 06/12/2007
• Published: 01/10/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 06/12/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Nokia Technologies Oy (Nokia Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Metacarta, Inc.
• Inventors: Frank, John
• Granted Patent: US 8,015,183 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/003
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/29 Geographical information databases
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/38 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9537 Spatial or temporal dependent retrieval, e.g. spatiotemporal queries

Abstract

Under one aspect, an interface program stored on a computer-readable medium causes a computer system with a display device to perform the functions of: accepting search criteria from a user, the search criteria including a domain identifier identifying a domain and a free text query entry; in response to accepting said search criteria from the user, receiving a set of document-location tuples from a corpus of documents, wherein each document: (a) contains information that is responsive to the free text query entry; and (b) contains location-related information that refers to a location within the domain; requesting and receiving a result from an additional query based at least in part on the domain identifier, the result not being a document-location tuple; and displaying a visual representation of at least a subset of the document-location tuples and a visual representation of the result of the additional query on the display device.

Claims

1. An interface program stored on a computer-readable medium for causing a computer system with a display device to perform the functions of:

accepting search criteria from a user, the search criteria including a domain identifier identifying a domain and a free text query entry;

in response to accepting said search criteria from the user, receiving a set of document-location tuples from a corpus of documents, wherein each document of the set of documents;

(a) contains anywhere within the document information that is responsive to the free text query entry; and

(b) contains anywhere within the document location-related information that refers to a location within the domain;

requesting and receiving a result from an additional query based at least in part on the domain identifier, the result not being a document-location tuple; and

displaying a visual representation of at least a subset of the document-location tuples and a visual representation of the result of the additional query on the display device.

2. The interface program of claim 1, wherein the visual representation of the at least a subset of the document-location tuples comprises a plurality of visual indicators on a map image.

3. The interface program of claim 2, wherein the visual representation of the result of the additional query comprises a visual indicator on the map image.

4. The interface program of claim 1, wherein the additional query comprises a query to a database.

5. The interface program of claim 1, wherein the additional query comprises statistically analyzing phrases within the set of documents, and identifying a plurality of statistically interesting phrases based on the statistical analysis, the statistically interesting phrases having a statistical property that distinguishes them from other phrases in the documents.

6. The interface program of claim 5, wherein identifying the plurality of statistically interesting phrases comprises one of selecting phrases having a frequency of occurrence that exceeds a predetermined threshold, and selecting a pre-determined number of phrases having a frequency of occurrence higher than a frequency of occurrence of other phrases in the documents.

7. The interface program of claim 5, wherein the visual representation of the result of the additional query comprises a visual representation of the plurality of statistically interesting phrases.

8. The interface program of claim 7, wherein the visual representation of the plurality of statistically interesting phrases comprises a plurality of annotations on a map.

9. The interface program of claim 7, wherein the visual representation of the plurality of statistically interesting phrases comprises a list of the statistically interesting phrases.

10. The interface program of claim 7, wherein a plurality of the statistically interesting phrases are associated with a subdomain within the domain, and wherein the visual representation of the plurality statistically interesting phrases comprises a bounding box indicating the subdomain on a map.

11. A method of displaying information about documents, the method comprising:

accepting search criteria from a user, the search criteria including a domain identifier identifying a domain and a free text query entry;

in response to accepting said search criteria from the user, receiving a set of document-location tuples from a corpus of documents, wherein each document of the set of documents;

(a) contains anywhere within the document information that is responsive to the free text query entry; and

(b) contains anywhere within the document location-related information that refers to a location within the domain;

requesting and receiving a result from an additional query based at least in part on the domain identifier, the result not being a document-location tuple; and

displaying a visual representation of at least a subset of the document-location tuples and a visual representation of the result of the additional query on a display device.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the visual representation of the at least a subset of the document-location tuples comprises a plurality of visual indicators on a map image.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the visual representation of the result of the additional query comprises a visual indicator on the map image.

14. The method of claim 11, wherein the additional query comprises a query to a database.

15. The method of claim 11, wherein the additional query comprises statistically analyzing phrases within the set of documents, and identifying a plurality of statistically interesting phrases based on the statistical analysis, the statistically interesting phrases having a statistical property that distinguishes them from other phrases in the documents.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein identifying the plurality of statistically interesting phrases comprises one of selecting phrases having a frequency of occurrence that exceeds a predetermined threshold, and selecting a pre-determined number of phrases having a frequency of occurrence higher than a frequency of occurrence of other phrases in the documents.

17. The method of claim 15, wherein the visual representation of the result of the additional query comprises a visual representation of the plurality of statistically interesting phrases.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the visual representation of the plurality of statistically interesting phrases comprises a plurality of annotations on a map.

19. The method of claim 17, wherein the visual representation of the plurality of statistically interesting phrases comprises a list of the statistically interesting phrases.

20. The method of claim 17, wherein a plurality of the statistically interesting phrases are associated with a subdomain within the domain, and wherein the visual representation of the plurality statistically interesting phrases comprises a bounding box indicating the subdomain on a map.

21. An interface program stored on a computer-readable medium for causing a computer system with a display device to perform the functions of:

identifying a plurality of statistically interesting phrases occurring within a plurality of documents of a corpus of documents, the statistically interesting phrases having a statistical property that distinguishes them from other phrases in the documents;

identifying locations referenced within the identified statistically interesting phrases;

displaying a visual representation of a domain, the domain encompassing at least a subset of the identified locations;

displaying a visual representation of at least a subset of the identified locations; and

displaying at least a subset of the identified statistically interesting phrases, each of the displayed phrases visually associated with a corresponding visual representation of the at least a subset of the identified locations.

22. The interface program of claim 21 for causing the computer system to further perform the functions of computing a relevance score for each of the identified statistically interesting phrases, and displaying only phrases having a relevance score exceeding a predetermined threshold.

23. The interface program of claim 21, wherein the statistical property of the statistically interesting phrases is related to a user'"'"'s free text query.

24. A method of displaying information about documents, the method comprising:

identifying a plurality of statistically interesting phrases occurring within a plurality of documents of a corpus of documents, the statistically interesting phrases having a statistical property that distinguishes them from other phrases in the documents;

identifying locations referenced within the identified statistically interesting phrases;

displaying a visual representation of a domain, the domain encompassing at least a subset of the identified locations;

displaying a visual representation of at least a subset of the identified locations; and

displaying at least a subset of the identified statistically interesting phrases, each of the displayed phrases visually associated with a corresponding visual representation of the at least a subset of the identified locations.

25. The method of claim 24, further comprising computing a relevance score for each of the identified statistically interesting phrases, and displaying only phrases having a relevance score exceeding a predetermined threshold.

26. The method of claim 24, wherein the statistical property of the statistically interesting phrases is related to a user'"'"'s free text query.

28. The interface program of claim 26, wherein the visual indicator comprises a bounding box representing an area encompassing a plurality of proximate locations each having a value score exceeding the predetermined value score.

27. An interface program stored on a computer-readable medium for causing a computer system with a display device to perform the functions of:

identifying a plurality of locations referenced within a plurality of documents of a corpus of documents;

for each location of the plurality of locations, computing a value score based on a frequency of occurrences of references to the location in the corpus of documents;

displaying a visual representation of a domain, the domain encompassing the locations; and

displaying a visual indicator on the visual representation of the domain, the visual indicator representing locations of the plurality of locations having a value score exceeding a predetermined value score.

29. A method of displaying information about documents, the method comprising:

identifying a plurality of locations referenced within a plurality of documents of a corpus of documents;

for each location of the plurality of locations, computing a value score based on a frequency of occurrences of references to the location in the corpus of documents;

displaying a visual representation of a domain, the domain encompassing the locations; and

displaying a visual indicator on the visual representation of the domain, the visual indicator representing locations of the plurality of locations having a value score exceeding a predetermined value score.

30. The method of claim 29, wherein the visual indicator comprises a bounding box representing an area encompassing a plurality of proximate locations each having a value score exceeding the predetermined value score.

31. An interface program stored on a computer-readable medium for causing a computer system with a display to perform the functions of:

accepting search criteria from a user, the search criteria including a domain identifier identifying a domain and a free text query entry;

in response to accepting said search criteria from the user, receiving a set of document-location tuples from a corpus of documents, wherein each document of the set of documents;

(a) contains anywhere within the document information that is responsive to the free text query entry; and

(b) contains anywhere within the document location-related information that refers to a location within the domain;

identifying a subset of documents that refer to locations that are more spatially proximate to each other than to other locations referred to by other documents in the corpus of documents; and

displaying a visual representation of at the subset of documents on the display device.

32. The interface program of claim 31, wherein the visual representation of the subset of documents comprises at least one of a hotspot box and a plurality of annotations representing statistically interesting phrases within the subset of documents.

33. A method of displaying information about documents, the method comprising:

accepting search criteria from a user, the search criteria including a domain identifier identifying a domain and a free text query entry;

in response to accepting said search criteria from the user, receiving a set of document-location tuples from a corpus of documents, wherein each document of the set of documents;

(a) contains anywhere within the document information that is responsive to the free text query entry; and

(b) contains anywhere within the document location-related information that refers to a location within the domain;

identifying a subset of documents that refer to locations that are more spatially proximate to each other than to other locations referred to by other documents in the corpus of documents; and

displaying a visual representation of at the subset of documents on the display device.

34. The method of claim 33, wherein the visual representation of the subset of documents comprises at least one of a hotspot box and a plurality of annotations representing statistically interesting phrases within the subset of documents.