System and method for visually representing a hierarchical database objects and their similarity relationships to other objects in the database

• US 6,985,898 B1
• Filed: 10/02/2000
• Issued: 01/10/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 10/01/1999
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Fair Isaac Corporation
• Original Assignee: Infoglide Software Corp. (Fair Isaac Corporation)
• Inventors: Ripley, John R., Hicks, Gordon C., Wotring, Steve C.
• Primary Examiner(s): ALAM, SHAHID AL
• Application Number:
  US09/677,476
• Time in Patent Office: 1,926 Days
• Field of Search: 707/10, 707/104, 707/3, 707/4, 707/5, 707/6, 707/102, 707/103.R, 707/104.1, 702/22, 702/27, 709/203, 345/355, 345/420, 715/526, 715/738, 715/700, 715/850, 715/516
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/338 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99935 Query augmenting and refining, e.g. inexact access
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99943 Generating database or data structure, e.g. via user interface
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99944 Object-oriented database structure
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99945 Object-oriented database structure processing

Abstract

The present invention comprises a computer-implemented visualization model of similarity relationships between documents. It comprises performing a similarity search based on at least one attribute of a reference document to find at least one target document with similar attributes; creating a visual representation of the reference database document and the at least one target document; creating a visual representation of the similarities between the reference document and the at least one target document; and displaying the visual representations of the database documents and their similarities on a graphical user interface. The target documents that are similarity searched may reside in a plurality of databases. The similarity search returns a result set of target documents that are used by the visualization model to create the visual representation of the documents and the similarities between the documents.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented visualization model of similarity relationships between documents comprising:

performing a similarity search in a database based on at least one reference attribute of at least one reference document to find at least one target document with at least one target attribute having a similarity relationship to the at least one reference attribute;

creating unique visualization model nodes corresponding to the at least one reference document and the at least one target document;

assigning properties to the unique visualization model nodes including form item, link count, group ID, hidden count, locked, caption, color, hierarchical level, selected and ID;

creating unique visualization model edges corresponding to the similarity relationships between the at least one reference document and the at least one target document;

assigning properties to the unique visualization model edges including from node, from node ID, to node, to node ID, query list, caption, color, visible, selected and ID;

displaying the unique visualization model nodes and the unique visualization model edges on a graphical user interface; and

indicating a degree of similarity between the displayed unique visualization model nodes by the displayed unique visualization model edges.

2. The method according to claim 1 wherein the at least one target document that is similarity searched reside in a plurality of databases.

3. The method according to claim 1 wherein the similarity search returns a result set of the at least one reference document, the at least one document, and similarity relationships between the at least one reference document and the at least one target document that are used by the visualization model to create the unique visualization model nodes corresponding to the documents and the unique visualization model edges corresponding to the similarity relationships between the documents.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the visual representation is three dimensional.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the visualization model is selected from the group consisting of a two dimensional link chart visualization, a three dimensional visualization, a model explorer visualization, a cross database visualization, and a data landscape visualization.

6. A computer-implemented interactive visualization model of similarity relationships between documents comprising:

using a similarity search performed on reference attributes of a reference document which-results in a set of 0 to n target documents with target attributes having similarity relationships with the reference attributes;

creating visualization model nodes corresponding to the reference document and each target document;

performing a lookup on a unique nodes list for determining if the created visualization model nodes already exists, adding the created visualization model nodes to the unique nodes list if the created visualization model nodes are not on the unique nodes list, and designating the visualization model nodes on the unique nodes list as unique visualization model nodes;

creating visualization model edges corresponding to the similarity relationships between the reference document and each target document;

performing a lookup on a unique edges list for determining if the created visualization model edges already exists, adding the created visualization model edges to the unique edges list if the created visualization model edges are not on the unique edges list, and designating the visualization model edges on the unique edges list as unique visualization model edges;

displaying the unique visualization model nodes corresponding to the reference documents and each target document and the unique visualization model edges corresponding to the similarity relationships on a graphical user interface; and

indicating a degree of similarity between the displayed unique visualization model nodes by the displayed unique visualization model edges.

7. The method of claim 6 further comprising allowing a user using the graphical user interface to initiate the similarity search and select attributes of the reference document to be used in the similarity search.

8. The method of claim 6, further comprising allowing a user using the graphical user interface to choose any attributes of the reference document to be used in the similarity search.

9. The method of claim 8 further comprising using attributes of a target document as a source for a new search.

10. A computer-readable medium containing instructions for a computer-implemented interactive visualization model of similarity relationships between documents according to the steps of claim 6.

11. The method of claim 6, wherein the visualization model is selected from the group consisting of a two dimensional link chart visualization, a three dimensional visualization, a model explorer visualization, a cross database visualization, and a data landscape visualization.

12. A computer-implemented visualization model of similarities between documents comprising:

displaying a reference hierarchical object;

allowing a user to initiate a similarity search, based on at least one attribute of the reference hierarchical object, to find at least one target hierarchical object;

visually representing a unique visualization model reference node corresponding to the reference hierarchical object and a unique visualization model target node corresponding to the at least one target hierarchical object that meet a similarity search criteria;

visually representing a unique visualization model edge corresponding to a similarity relationship between the reference hierarchical object and each target hierarchical object;

displaying the visual representations of the unique visualization model nodes and the unique visualization model edge on a graphical user interface; and

indicating a degree of similarity between the displayed unique visualization model nodes by the displayed unique visualization model edges.

13. The method according to claim 12 wherein the unique visualization model node comprises:

a reference to the hierarchical object the model node represents;

a reference to at least one attribute of the hierarchical object used in the similarity search to determine if a unique visualization model edge exists; and

visual properties of the hierarchical document the unique visualization_—

model node represents.

14. The method according to claim 12 further comprising storing the visual representation of the unique visualization reference model node, each unique visualization target model node, and each unique visualization model edge in computer memory or on disk.

15. The method according to claim 12 wherein the unique visualization model edge comprises:

an identifier of the unique visualization reference model node from which the visual representation of the unique visualization model edge will extend and an identifier of the at least one unique visualization target model node to which the visual representation of the unique visualization model edge will extend; and

a list of the similarity search attributes used in the similarity search.

16. The method according to claim 15 further comprising user chosen attributes to be used in the similarity search.

17. The method of claim 12, wherein each unique visualization model edge indicates a degree of similarity between the reference hierarchical object and the target hierarchical object and is displayed as a line connecting unique visualization model nodes, said model nodes being depicted as geometric shapes on the graphical user interface.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the length of the line connecting the unique visualization model nodes varies as a function of the degree of similarity between the reference document and the target document referenced by the unique visualization model nodes.

19. The method of claim 12, wherein the visualization model is selected from the group consisting of a two dimensional link chart visualization, a three dimensional visualization, a model explorer visualization, a cross database visualization, and a data landscape visualization.

20. A computer-implemented method of visualizing similarity relationships between documents comprising:

using a reference hierarchical document;

performing a similarity search based on user selected attributes of the reference hierarchical document and determining a result set of target documents comprising 0 to n hierarchical documents;

converting the reference hierarchical document and the 0 to n hierarchical documents to a unique visualization model nodes that visually represent the hierarchical documents to be displayed on a graphical user interface;

using the similarity search results, creating a unique visualization model edges that visually represent the similarities between the reference hierarchical document and each similar hierarchical document in the result set to be displayed on a graphical user interface; and

indicating a degree of similarity between the displayed unique visualization model nodes by the displayed unique visualization model edges.

21. The method of claim 20 further comprising displaying the unique visualization model edge and the unique visualization model node on a graphical user interface.

22. A computer-readable medium containing instructions for a computer-implemented method of visualizing relationships between documents according to the steps of claim 20.

23. The method of claim 20, wherein the visualization model is selected from the group consisting of a two dimensional link chart visualization, a three dimensional visualization, a model explorer visualization, a cross database visualization, and a data landscape visualization.

24. A computer-readable medium containing instructions for a visualization model of similarity relationships between documents comprising:

performing a similarity search in a database based on at least one reference attribute of a at least one reference document to find at least one target document with at least one target attribute having a similarity relationship to the at least one reference document;

creating unique visualization model nodes corresponding to the at least one reference document and the at least one target document;

assigning properties to the unique visualization model nodes including form item, link count, group ID, hidden count, locked, caption, color, hierarchical level, selected and ID;

creating unique visualization model edges corresponding to the similarity relationships between the at least one reference document and the at least one target document;

assigning properties to the unique visualization model edges including from node, from node ID, to node, to node ID, query list, caption, color, visible, selected and ID;

displaying the unique visualization model nodes and the unique visualization model edges on a graphical user interface; and

indicating a degree of similarity between the displayed unique visualization model nodes by the displayed unique visualization model edges.

25. A computer-readable medium containing instructions for a visualization model of similarities between documents comprising:

displaying a reference hierarchical object;

allowing a user to initiate a similarity search, based on at least one attribute of the reference hierarchical object, to find at least one target hierarchical object;

visually representing a unique visualization model reference node corresponding to the reference hierarchical object and a unique visualization model target node corresponding to the at least one target hierarchical object that meet a similarity search criteria;

visually representing a unique visualization model edge corresponding to a similarity relationship between the reference hierarchical object and each target hierarchical object;

displaying the visual representations of the unique visualization model nodes and the unique visualization model edge on a graphical user interface; and

indicating a degree of similarity between the displayed unique visualization model nodes by the displayed unique visualization model edges.