Selective document retrieval method and system

• US 5,825,943 A
• Filed: 09/29/1995
• Issued: 10/20/1998
• Est. Priority Date: 05/07/1993
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Canon Inc.
• Original Assignee: Canon Inc.
• Inventors: Roberts, Michael G., Hunter, Ken, Garland, Harry, DeVito, Jonathan, May, Gerald A.
• Primary Examiner(s): CHANG, JON CARLTON
• Application Number:
  US08/537,314
• Time in Patent Office: 1,117 Days
• Field of Search: 382/305, 382/306, 382/177, 382/173, 358/403, 395/616, 395/761, 707/1, 707/500
• US Class Current: 382/306
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/5846 using extracted text
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/93 Document management systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/414 Extracting the geometrical structure, e.g. layout tree; Block segmentation, e.g. bounding boxes for graphics or text

Abstract

A method and system for storing and selectively retrieving information, such as words, from a document set. The method includes generating an image data set representative of the information contained in the document set. The method also involves generating a text data set representative of a text portion of the information contained in the document set. A text-image correspondence (TIC) table is generated that includes data representative of coordinates information corresponding to each phrase of the document set. A search phrase is identified in response to user-specified search criteria and the search phrase is identified in the text image data set. Then, the TIC table is used to identify the coordinates information corresponding to the search phrase identified in the text data set. A display of the portion of the page containing the search phrase is generated using the coordinates information.

Claims

1. A method implemented on a digital computer for storing and selectively retrieving information contained in a set of documents originally located external to said computer, wherein said document set includes at least one page, said method comprising:

A. generating a bit-mapped image data set representative of information contained in the document set;

B. storing the image data set in a first memory storage device associated with said computer;

C. generating a text data set representative of a text portion of the information contained in the document set;

D. storing the text data set in a second memory storage device associated with said computer;

E. generating a text-image correspondence table including information representative of correlations between each phrase within the stored text data set and two-dimensional coordinates of a corresponding location within the stored image data set;

F. identifying a search phrase, corresponding to user-specified search criteria, in the stored text data set;

G. identifying two-dimensional coordinates corresponding to the search phrase from the text-image correspondence table; and

H. generating a display of at least that image data, from within the stored image data set and by using said identified two-dimensional coordinates, corresponding to said search phrase.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein Step H further comprises indicating at least a portion of the search phrase on the displayed image data.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein Step C comprises performing optical character recognition on the stored image data set to generate the text data set.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the step of performing optical character recognition further comprises segmenting the text portion and the graphics portion from the information contained in the document set.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the text data set comprises one from the group consisting of:

ASCII;

Unicode;

EBCDIC; and

JIS.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the document set comprises a plurality of pages and Step H comprises generating a display of a portion of each of several pages of the document set, wherein each displayed page portion contains at least a portion of the search phrase and all of said displayed page portions are displayed simultaneously.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein each phrase is a word.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the generating step comprises generating a display of a portion of a page of the document set containing said image data corresponding to said search phrase.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of identifying a search phrase includes the use of a concordance table.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein the image data set is subjected to a parsing algorithm to eliminate extraneous data, wherein the extraneous data comprises data from the group of data comprising punctuation and formatting.

11. The method of claim 1 wherein the search criteria are predetermined criteria presented to the user in the form of a menu of options in a graphical user interface on a computer screen display associated with said computer.

12. The method of claim 1 wherein the text-image correspondence table is accessed once the first occurrence of the search phrase is identified within the text data set.

13. The method of claim 1 wherein the text-image correspondence table is accessed after all occurrences of the search phrase are identified within the text data set.

14. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of generating a display includes highlighting the search phrase within the image data.

15. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of generating a text data set converts all text within the information contained in the document set into computer-readable code.

16. The method of claim 1 wherein the set of documents is a set of paper documents.

17. A method implemented on a digital computer for storing and selectively retrieving information contained in a set of documents originally located external to said computer, wherein said document set includes at least one page, said method comprising:

A. generating a bit-mapped image data set representative of information contained in the document set;

B. storing the image data set in a first memory storage device associated with said computer;

C. generating a text data set representative of a text portion of the information contained in the document set;

D. storing the text data set in a second memory storage device associated with said computer;

E. generating a text-image correspondence table including information representative of correlations between each phrase within the stored text data set and two-dimensional coordinates of a corresponding location within the stored image data set;

F. generating a set of non-literal search terms, in accordance with a predetermined set of rules, corresponding to user-specified search criteria;

G. identifying at least one of the non-literal search terms in the stored text data set;

H. identifying two-dimensional coordinates corresponding to the non-literal search term(s) from the text-image correspondence table; and

I. generating a display of at least that image data identified in Step H, from within the stored image data set and by using said identified two-dimensional coordinates.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein Step I further comprises indicating at least a portion of the non-literal search term on the displayed image data.

19. The method of claim 17, wherein Step C comprises performing optical character recognition on the stored image data set to generate the text data set.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein the step of performing optical character recognition further comprises segmenting the text portion and the graphics portion from the information contained in the document set.

21. The method of claim 19, wherein the document set comprises a plurality of pages and Step I comprises generating a display of a portion of each of several pages of the document set, wherein each displayed page portion contains at least a portion of the non-literal search term and all of said displayed page portions are displayed simultaneously.

22. The method of claim 17, wherein the text data set comprises one from the group consisting of:

ASCII;

Unicode;

EBCDIC; and

JIS.

23. The method of claim 17, wherein Step B further comprises compressing the image data set.

24. A computer-based system for storing and selectively retrieving information contained in a set of documents originally located external to said computer, said document set including at least one page, said system comprising:

A. a stored bit-mapped image data set associated with said computer and representative of information contained in the document set;

B. a stored text data set associated with said computer and representative of a text portion of the information contained in the document set;

C. a text-image correspondence table including information representative of correlations between each phrase within the stored text data set and two-dimensional coordinates of a corresponding location within the stored image data set;

D. means for identifying a search phrase, corresponding to user-specified search criteria, in the stored text data set;

E. means for identifying two-dimensional coordinates corresponding to the search phrase from the text-image correspondence table; and

F. means for generating a display of at least that image data identified in paragraph E above from within the stored image data set and by using said identified two-dimensional coordinates.

25. The system of claim 24, further comprising means for indicating at least a portion of the search phrase on the displayed image data.

26. The system of claim 24, further comprising an optical character recognition (OCR) device for performing OCR on the stored image data set to generate the text data set.

27. The system of claim 24, wherein the text data set comprises one from the group consisting of:

ASCII;

Unicode;

EBCDIC; and

JIS.

28. A method implemented on a digital computer for storing and selectively retrieving information contained in a set of documents originally located external to said computer, wherein said document set includes at least one page, said method comprising:

A. generating a bit-mapped image data set representative of information contained in the document set;

B. storing the image data set in a first memory storage device associated with said computer;

C. generating a text data set representative of a text portion of the information contained in the document set;

D. storing the text data set in a second memory storage device associated with said computer;

E. generating a text-image correspondence table including information representative of correlations between each phrase within the text data set and two-dimensional coordinates of a corresponding location within the image data set;

F. identifying a search phrase, corresponding to user-specified search criteria, in the text data set;

G. identifying, within the image data set and by means of using said coordinates, image data corresponding to the search phrase identified in the text data set; and

H. generating a display of at least that image data corresponding to said search phrase, said generating step not displaying any text data;

wherein each corresponding location within the image data set comprises a two-dimensional beginning boundary point and a two-dimensional ending boundary point.

29. A method implemented on a digital computer for storing and selectively retrieving information contained in a set of documents originally located external to said computer, wherein said document set includes at least one page, said method comprising:

A. generating a bit-mapped image data set representative of information contained in the document set;

B. storing the image data set in a first memory storage device associated with said computer;

C. generating a text data set representative of a text portion of the information contained in the document set;

D. storing the text data set in a second memory storage device associated with said computer;

E. generating a text-image correspondence table including information representative of correlations between each phrase within the text data set and two-dimensional coordinates of a corresponding location within the image data set;

F. identifying a search phrase, corresponding to user-specified search criteria, in the text data set;

G. identifying, within the image data set and by means of using said coordinates, image data corresponding to the search phrase identified in the text data set; and

H. generating a display of at least that image data corresponding to said search phrase, said generating step not displaying any text data;

wherein the image data set is divided by a first set of parallel lines into a set of zones and then further divided by a second set of parallel lines, orthogonal to the first set of parallel lines, to create a set of points that define said two-dimensional coordinates.