USING VISUAL TECHNIQUES TO MANIPULATE DATA

• US 20090322756A1
• Filed: 06/27/2008
• Published: 12/31/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 06/27/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Dwyer, Timothy Garry, Jakobsen, Mikkel Ronne, Jewsbury, Kipper V., Nachmanson, Lev Boris, Kulyk, Olga, Kotler, Matthew Jay, Weber, Jason J., Krishnan, Murali R., Fernandez, Roland L., Robertson, George G., Kimchi, Gur, Fisher, Danyel A., Holm-Peterson, Morten, Lee, Bongshin, Ruble, B. Scott, Welcker, Brian L., Chan, Stella Yick, Chronister, Benjamin L., Abeln, Christian Olaf
• Granted Patent: US 8,358,308 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/440
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/34 Browsing; Visualisation therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation

Abstract

Various types of data can be collected into a data set and related content and/or related concepts across the data in the data set and/or across search histories can be displayed as a visual representation. The related content/concepts can be presented as a function of incremental revealing of relationships. After reviewing the visual representation, a user can customize the data set and relationships by specifically excluding a related data segment. The visual representation can be applied across multiple searches or other obtained data. Through interaction with the visual representation, a user can drill down into common linkages of the data to more narrowly focus on a subset of the data and/or to refocus a search result and/or to provide annotations.

Claims

1. A system that facilitates manipulation of visualized data, comprising:

an aggregation component that gathers a plurality of data that represents a data set and renders a visual representation of the data set in response to a request, the data set includes a search history; and

a personalization component that accepts a customization that filters by a segment of at least one of the plurality of data, the aggregation component updates the visual representation of the data set based on the customization, wherein the plurality of data includes structured data, unstructured data, or combinations thereof.

2. The system of claim 1, the search history includes an annotation associated with a relationship across two or more searches.

3. The system of claim 1, further comprising an incremental search module that incrementally reveals relationships within the data set.

4. The system of claim 1, further comprising a noise filter that mitigates capturing of data that is outside a focus of the data set.

5. The system of claim 1, further comprising an interactive component that allows a user to drill down into a linkage associated with two or more data of the data set to obtain more information related to the linkage.

6. The system of claim 1, further comprising a merge component that combines two or more data sets, the personalization component applies customizations to the combined data sets.

7. The system of claim 1, further comprising a facet detection module that aggregates the data set as a function of automatic facet detection.

8. The system of claim 1, further comprising a distribution module that organizes the set of data in at least one of a time line, a bar chart, a histogram, a Venn diagram, or combinations thereof.

9. The system of claim 1, the visual representation includes linked paths for related content and unlinked paths for unrelated content, wherein customized annotations are associated with one or more linked or unlinked paths.

10. A computer-implemented method of facilitating manipulation of data, comprising:

gathering a plurality of data into a data set;

providing a visual representation of the data set as at least one of a time line, a bar chart, a histogram, a Venn diagram, or combinations thereof,

receiving one or more customizations related to a segment of data included in the data set;

applying the customizations; and

outputting the result of the applied customizations in a visualized format.

11. The method of claim 10, the one or more customizations are a specific request to exclude a visual representation of at least one common segment or to annotate a linkage between one or more common segments.

12. The method of claim 10, the visual representation of the data set is dynamically altered based on incremental revealing of relationships of two or more segments of data.

13. The method of claim 10, the data is gathered into the data set based on receipt of one or more data to be included in the data set or based on historical searches.

14. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

gathering a second plurality of data into a second data set;

combining the data set with the second data set; and

presenting a visual representation of the combined data sets.

15. The method of claim 10, the visual representation includes linked paths for related content and unlinked paths for unrelated content, wherein the paths include customized annotations.

16. The method of claim 10, the segment is information contained within one or more data of the plurality of data.

17. A computer-executable system comprising:

means for gathering data to be included in a first data set and a second data set, the data is gathered as a function of a search history and a current search request;

means for providing a visual representation of related content between segments of the gathered data in the first data set and the second data set;

means for displaying the visual representation with at least one customizable linked path for related content or a customizable unlinked path for unrelated content;

means for obtaining a request to customize the visualization to exclude a user specified related content, and

means for applying the customization to the first data set and the second data set, the means for displaying the visual representation displays the applied customization as a visual representation of a time line, a bar chart, a histogram, a Venn diagram, or combinations thereof.

18. The computer-executable system of claim 17, further comprising:

means for merging a third data set with the first data set and the second data set, the means for displaying the visual representation displays the merged data sets.

19. The computer-executable system of claim 17, the means for providing the visual representation utilizes automatic facet detection.

20. The computer-executable system of claim 17, the means for providing the visual representation incrementally reveals relationships between the related content.