Systems and methods for hierarchical organization and presentation of geographic search results

• US 20080010273A1
• Filed: 06/12/2007
• Published: 01/10/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 06/12/2006
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Nokia Corporation
• Original Assignee: Metacarta, Inc.
• Inventors: Frank, John
• Application Number:
  US11/818,066
• Publication Number:
  US 20080010273A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/005
• 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 free-text query and a domain identifier, the domain identifier identifying a physical location; in response to accepting said search criteria from the user, receiving a set of document-location tuples from a corpus of documents, each document-location tuple satisfying the search criteria from the user; organizing the document-location tuples into a hierarchical graph structure, the hierarchical graph structure representing hierarchical spatial relationships between the physical locations; and displaying a visual representation of the hierarchical graph structure 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 free-text query and a domain identifier, the domain identifier identifying a physical location;

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

organizing the document-location tuples into a hierarchical graph structure, the hierarchical graph structure representing hierarchical spatial relationships between the physical locations; and

displaying a visual representation of the hierarchical graph structure on the display device.

2. The interface program of claim 1, wherein the visual representation of the hierarchical graph structure comprises at least one of a map and a set of nested folders.

3. The interface program of claim 2, wherein at least some of the folders of the set of nested folders include references to at least some of the documents.

4. The interface program of claim 1 for causing the computer system to further perform the functions of organizing the document-location tuples into a hierarchical graph structure based on a reference graph structure.

5. The interface program of claim 4, wherein the reference graph structure comprises a plurality of geographical locations arranged into hierarchical nodes, wherein at least some nodes representing larger-area geographical features are at a higher level than nodes representing smaller-area geographical features that are encompassed within the larger-area geographical features.

6. The interface program of claim 4, wherein the reference graph structure comprises one of a tree graph and a directed acyclic graph.

7. The interface program of claim 1 for causing the computer system to further perform the functions of organizing the document document-location tuples into a hierarchical graph structure, said organizing comprising initializing an empty graph-based result set, and for each location in the document-location tuples:

(a) finding a node in a reference graph corresponding to the location;

(b) attaching the node and any parents of the node to the graph-based result set; and

(c) attaching all document-location tuples having the location to the node.

8. The interface program of claim 7, wherein the parents of the node comprise at least one physical domain having a larger spatial area than the node corresponding to the location.

9. The interface program of claim 1, wherein the physical domain comprises a planetary body.

10. The interface program of claim 1, wherein the physical domain comprises a geographical region.

11. The interface program of claim 1 for causing the computer system to further perform the functions of displaying a map image and displaying visual indicators representing at least a subset of the locations in the map image.

12. The interface program of claim 11, wherein at least one document references multiple locations, and wherein the visual indicators include lines connecting at least some of the multiple locations.

13. The interface program of claim 11, wherein each of the visual indicators has an opacity proportional to a relevance score of at least one document-location tuple it represents.

14. The interface program of claim 1, wherein the spatial relationships between the locations comprise at least one of containment, partial containment, and proximity.

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

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

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

organizing the document-location tuples into a hierarchical graph structure, the hierarchical graph structure representing hierarchical spatial relationships between the physical locations; and

displaying a visual representation of the hierarchical graph structure on a display device.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the visual representation of the hierarchical graph structure comprises at least one of a map and a set of nested folders.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein at least some of the folders of the set of nested folders include references to at least some of the documents.

18. The method of claim 15, comprising organizing the document-location tuples into a hierarchical graph structure based on a reference graph structure.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the reference graph structure comprises a plurality of geographical locations arranged into hierarchical nodes, wherein at least some nodes representing larger-area geographical features are at a higher level than nodes representing smaller-area geographical features that are encompassed within the larger-area geographical features.

20. The method of claim 18, wherein the reference graph structure comprises one of a tree graph and a directed acyclic graph.

21. The method of claim 15, wherein organizing the document-location tuples into a hierarchical graph structure comprises initializing an empty graph-based result set, and for each location in the document-location tuples:

(a) finding a node in a reference graph corresponding to the location;

(b) attaching the node and any parents of the node to the graph-based result set; and

(c) attaching all document-location tuples having the location to the node.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein the parents of the node comprise at least one physical domain having a larger spatial area than the node corresponding to the location.

23. The method of claim 15, wherein the physical domain comprises a planetary body.

24. The method of claim 15, wherein the physical domain comprises a geographical region.

25. The method of claim 15, further comprising displaying a map image, and displaying visual indicators representing at least a subset of the locations in the map image.

26. The method of claim 25, wherein at least one document references multiple locations, and wherein the visual indicators include lines connecting at least some of the multiple locations.

27. The method of claim 25, wherein each of the visual indicators has an opacity proportional to a relevance score of at least one document-location tuple it represents.

28. The method of claim 15, wherein the spatial relationships between the locations comprise at least one of containment, partial containment, and proximity.

29. 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 free text entry query and a domain identifier identifying the domain;

in response to accepting said search criteria from the user, receiving a first set of documents from a corpus of documents that;

(a) contains anywhere within the document location-related information that refers to a specific location within the domain identified by the domain identifier; and

(b) contains anywhere within the document text that is responsive to the free text entry query, wherein said identified documents are identified by a plurality of document identifiers;

displaying a representation of said domain on the display device, wherein the domain is a geographical region and said representation is multi-dimensional map of the geographical region;

displaying on the display device a plurality of visual indicators as representations of the first set of documents identified by said plurality of document identifiers, the corresponding visual indicator for each document identifier of said plurality of document identifiers being positioned within the representation of the domain at a coordinate within the domain that corresponds to the location-related information for the corresponding document;

receiving an inspection request from the user, the inspection request comprising a subdomain identifier identifying the subdomain, the subdomain within the domain;

in response to the inspection request from the user, receiving a second set of documents from the corpus of documents that;

(a) contains anywhere within the document location-related information that refers to a specific location within the subdomain identified by the subdomain identifier; and

(b) contains anywhere within the document text that is responsive to the free text entry query, wherein said identified documents are identified by a plurality of document identifiers; and

displaying information about the second set of documents on the display device.

30. The interface program of claim 29, wherein the inspection request comprises a movable subdomain indicator displayed on the representation of said domain.

31. The interface program of claim 29, wherein displaying information about the second set of documents on the display device comprises displaying a plurality of visual indicators as representations of the second set of documents, the corresponding visual indicator for each document being positioned within the representation of the domain at a coordinate within the domain that corresponds to the location-related information for the corresponding document.

32. The interface program of claim 29, wherein displaying information about the second set of documents on the display device comprises displaying a plurality of snippets of text from the second set of documents.

33. The interface program of claim 29, wherein the first and second sets of documents are hierarchically organized based on a reference graph.

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

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

in response to accepting said search criteria from the user, receiving a first set of documents from a corpus of documents that;

(a) contains anywhere within the document location-related information that refers to a specific location within the domain identified by the domain identifier; and

(b) contains anywhere within the document text that is responsive to the free text entry query, wherein said identified documents are identified by a plurality of document identifiers;

displaying a representation of said domain on a display device, wherein the domain is a geographical region and said representation is multi-dimensional map of the geographical region;

displaying on the display device a plurality of visual indicators as representations of the first set of documents identified by said plurality of document identifiers, the corresponding visual indicator for each document identifier of said plurality of document identifiers being positioned within the representation of the domain at a coordinate within the domain that corresponds to the location-related information for the corresponding document;

receiving an inspection request from the user, the inspection request comprising a subdomain identifier identifying the subdomain, the subdomain within the domain;

in response to the inspection request from the user, receiving a second set of documents from the corpus of documents that;

(a) contains anywhere within the document location-related information that refers to a specific location within the subdomain identified by the subdomain identifier; and

(b) contains anywhere within the document text that is responsive to the free text entry query, wherein said identified documents are identified by a plurality of document identifiers; and

displaying information about the second set of documents on the display device.

35. The method of claim 34, wherein the inspection request comprises a movable subdomain indicator displayed on the representation of said domain.

36. The method of claim 34, wherein displaying information about the second set of documents on the display device comprises displaying a plurality of visual indicators as representations of the second set of documents, the corresponding visual indicator for each document being positioned within the representation of the domain at a coordinate within the domain that corresponds to the location-related information for the corresponding document.

37. The method of claim 34, wherein displaying information about the second set of documents on the display device comprises displaying a plurality of snippets of text from the second set of documents.

38. The method of claim 34, wherein the first and second sets of documents are hierarchically organized based on a reference graph.