Relationship view

• US 7,120,619 B2
• Filed: 04/22/2003
• Issued: 10/10/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 04/22/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Glatzer, Asta L., Wong, Curtis G., Drucker, Steven M.
• Primary Examiner(s): Hirl, Joseph P.
• Assistant Examiner(s): FERNANDEZ RIVAS, OMAR F
• Application Number:
  US10/420,414
• Publication Number:
  US 20040215657A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,267 Days
• Field of Search: 706 10- 15, 706/18, 706/20, 706 45- 50, 345/595, 345/607, 345/619, 345/625, 345/629, 345/639, 345/1.1, 345/1.2, 345/1.3, 345/902, 345/903
• US Class Current: 706/45
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/41 Indexing; Data structures therefor; Storage structures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/44 Browsing; Visualisation therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/48 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually

Abstract

The present invention provides a unique method and user interface that facilitates accessing and browsing objects in which a user begins with a center object (e.g., one or a few focal objects) displayed on a screen and related objects are populated on the screen as well. The related objects can be further organized into clusters whereby each cluster or grouping of objects expands on a particular attribute of the center object. The attributes correspond to metadata. Thus, the objects are populated based upon the metadata of the center object. According to one aspect, the user can access one or more specific objects having a plurality of attributes and then relax at least one of the attributes to see what other objects share at least one attribute with the center object. According to another aspect, the object having the closest match to a search request can be centrally displayed with other close matches arranged by their respective metadata.

Claims

1. A system that facilitates displaying objects comprising:

an input component that receives an input regarding a first object;

a relationship component that receives data regarding the first object and determines a plurality of other objects related to the first object; and

a display component that concurrently displays the first object with a subset of the other objects, the subset of the other objects having metadata in common with the first object, the display component arranges the related objects into a plurality of clusters around the first object, the respective clusters being organized based at least in part upon common metadata shared between the related objects.

2. The system of claim 1 further comprising an artificial intelligence component that infers an appropriate subset of related objects to display.

3. The system of claim 2, the AI component comprising at least one of neural networks, expert systems, Bayesian belief networks, SVMs, hidden Markov Models, and fuzzy logic.

4. The system of claim 2, the AI component being implicitly trained via observing user behavior in connection with browsing among related objects with respect to the first object.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the input regarding the first object is based at least in part upon user-based instruction.

6. The system of claim 1, further comprising one or more databases coupled to the relationship component, wherein the relationship component accesses objects related to the first object from the one or more databases by examining metadata associated with the respective objects included in the one or more databases.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein one or more metadata fields are assigned a weight.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the display component renders the first object and the plurality of clusters of related objects based at least in part upon any one of user instruction and each respective cluster'"'"'s degree of relatedness to the first object.

9. A computer employing the system of claim 1.

10. A computer readable medium having stored thereon the computer executable components of claim 1.

11. A method that facilitates accessing objects, comprising:

receiving a first object for rendering, the object having metadata associated therewith;

displaying the first object; and

displaying a plurality of additional objects concurrently with the first object, the additional objects having metadata related to the metadata of the first object, the metadata having a plurality of classes and the additional objects being displayed as clusters of the objects, the clusters being defined based upon the respective classes.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising browsing the plurality of additional objects with respect to the first object, the first object being a center of focus.

13. The method of claim 11, further comprising selecting one of the plurality of additional objects whereby the selected object becomes a second object for rendering, the second object replacing the first object to become a new center of focus;

displaying the second object; and

displaying a plurality of additional objects with the second object, the additional objects having metadata related to the metadata of the second object.

14. The method of claim 13, the second object has metadata associated therewith.

15. The method of claim 14, the second object has at least one metadata in common with the metadata of the first object.

16. The method of claim 11, receiving a first item for rendering comprises at least one of a user-based search request and a user-based selection.

17. The method of claim 11, the objects are stored in one or more databases from which they are received and accessed for displaying to a user.

18. The method of claim 11, the first object is displayed centrally on a display screen.

19. The method of claim 11, the clusters of additional objects are displayed peripheral to the first object.

20. The method of claim 11, the metadata comprises at least one of intrinsic metadata and extrinsic metadata.

21. The method of claim 11, the classes of metadata are based at least in part upon user input.

22. The method of claim 11, the displaying of the first object is a function of available display space.

23. The method of claim 11, displaying the plurality of additional objects comprises organizing the classes of metadata into clusters of related objects in one or more locations around the first object.

24. The method of claim 23, the location of the respective clusters is a function of strength of correlation of metadata associated with the clusters and metadata associated with the first object.

25. The method of claim 11, further comprising mousing over one cluster of objects to browse the objects therein.

26. The method of claim 25, the moused over cluster is enlarged relative to the other clusters to facilitate browsing of the one cluster.

27. The method of claim 11, further comprising moving the first object to a historical component when at least one of a new center of focus and a second object are selected to replace the first object thereby allowing a user to recall previous at least one of previous objects of focus and one or more clusters of objects related thereto.

51. A computer readable medium having stored thereon the method of claim 11.

28. A method that facilitates accessing objects, comprising:

receiving a first object for rendering, the object having metadata associated therewith;

displaying the first object; and

displaying a plurality of additional objects concurrently with the first object, the additional objects having metadata related to the metadata of the first object, the display of the respective additional objects being a function of strength of correlation of respective metadata with the first metadata, the plurality of additional objects being arranged into a plurality of clusters around the first object, the respective clusters being organized based at least in part upon common metadata shared between the additional objects.

29. The method of claim 28, a location of at least one of the displayed additional objects being a function of the correlation of respective metadata with the first metadata.

30. The method of claim 29, a depth location of at least one of the displayed additional objects being a function of the correlation of respective metadata with the first metadata.

31. The method of claim 29, a relative size of at least one of the displayed additional objects being a function of the correlation of respective metadata with the first metadata.

32. The method of claim 28, the first object being a center of focus.

33. The method of claim 28, further comprising selecting one of the plurality of additional objects whereby the selected object becomes a second object for rendering, the second object replacing the first object to become a new center of focus;

displaying the second object; and

displaying a plurality of additional objects with the second object, the additional objects having metadata related to the metadata of the second object.

34. The method of claim 33, the second object having metadata associated therewith.

35. The method of claim 34, the second object having at least one metadata in common with the metadata of the first object.

36. The method of claim 28, receiving a first item for rendering comprising at least one of a user-based search request and a user-based selection.

37. The method of claim 28, at least one of the first object and the additional objects being stored in one or more databases from which they are received and accessed for displaying to a user.

38. The method of claim 28, the first object being displayed centrally on a display screen.

39. The method of claim 28, the clusters of additional objects being displayed peripheral to the first object.

40. The method of claim 28, the metadata comprising at least one of intrinsic metadata and extrinsic metadata.

41. The method of claim 28, the classes of metadata being based at least in part upon user input.

42. The method of claim 28, the displaying of the first object being a function of available display space.

43. The method of claim 28, displaying the plurality of additional objects comprising organizing the classes of metadata into clusters of related objects in one or more locations around the first object.

44. The method of claim 28, further comprising mousing over one cluster of objects to browse the objects therein.

45. The method of claim 44, the moused over cluster being enlarged relative to the other clusters to facilitate browsing of the one cluster.

46. The method of claim 28, further comprising moving the first object to a historical component when at least one of a new center of focus and a second object are selected to replace the first object thereby allowing a user to recall at least one of previous objects of focus and one or more clusters of objects related thereto.

47. A user interface that facilitates browsing objects comprising:

an object of locus positioned centrally in a display area, the object of focus comprising metadata;

a plurality clusters of objects positioned in peripheral areas of the display area and surrounding the object of focus, the a plurality clusters of objects comprising at least one metadata in common with the metadata of the first object; and

a search input component that facilitates determining the first object.

48. The user interface of claim 47, further comprising a historical component that maintains a list of the objects of focus.

49. The user interface of claim 47, further comprising one or more seeds populated at least in part according to the metadata of the object of focus, the one or more seeds being related to the metadata of the object of focus.

50. A data packet adapted to be transmitted between two or more computer processes facilitating accessing objects, the data packet comprising:

information associated with receiving and displaying a first object, displaying and clustering a plurality of additional objects into a plurality of clusters that are accessed from one or more databases, the plurality of additional objects having metadata at least in part in common with metadata associated with the first object, the clustering being defined based at least in part upon metadata associated with the plurality of additional objects.

52. A system that facilitates accessing objects, comprising:

means for receiving a first object for rendering, the object having metadata associated therewith;

means for displaying the first object; and

means for displaying a plurality of additional objects concurrently with the first object, the additional objects having metadata related to the metadata of the first object, the metadata having a plurality of classes and the additional objects being displayed as clusters of the objects, the clusters being defined based upon the respective classes.