Methods and apparatus for indexing and searching of multi-media web pages

• US 7,162,691 B1
• Filed: 02/01/2000
• Issued: 01/09/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 02/01/2000
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Chatterjee, Raja, Mavris, Suzan
• Primary Examiner(s): Herndon; Heather
• Assistant Examiner(s): Botts; Michael K.
• Application Number:
  US09/496,086
• Time in Patent Office: 2,534 Days
• Field of Search: 715/513, 715/512
• US Class Current: 715/205
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/986 Document structures and storage, e.g. HTML extensions

Abstract

A system for automatically enhancing Web pages with annotations expressed in Extensible Markup Language (XML) which describes the pages'"'"' multimedia content. Each Web page is parsed or scanned to identify markup tags which contain the URLs of separately stored multimedia data (e.g. image, audio or video files). Each referenced multimedia data entity is then retrieved and analyzed by a type-specific process to extract metadata which describes its content. Additional descriptive metadata may be obtained from the referencing markup tag, accepted from a human editor, or fetched from operating system directories which provide access to the multimedia files. The resulting metadata is expressed in text-based XML format and inserted into a copy of the Web page to form an enhanced Web page whose multimedia content may then be processed by conventional text-based indexing and searching facilities.

Claims

1. Apparatus for indexing a Web page which incorporates multimedia data by reference to one or more resources which supply said multimedia data, said method comprising, in combination:

means for analyzing said web page to identify at least one markup tag containing a reference to a given one of said resources,

means for selecting and executing a media processing program for analyzing the content of the multimedia data supplied by said given one of said resources to generate metadata describing said content,

means for formatting said metadata into a character-based text annotation,

means for combining said Web page and said annotation to form an enhanced Web page, and

means for indexing said enhanced Web page.

2. Apparatus as set forth in claim 1 wherein said means for selecting and executing a media processing program comprises means for determining the particular data type of the multimedia data supplied by said given resource and means for selecting a processing program for analyzing multimedia data formatted in accordance with said particular data type.

3. Apparatus as set forth in claim 1 wherein said means for formatting said metadata comprises means for generating a text data annotation expressed in accordance with the Extensible Markup Language.

4. Apparatus as set forth in claim 1 including means for acquiring additional metadata which describes the multimedia data supplied by said given one of said resources from a source other than the content of said multimedia data, and means for including said additional metadata in said character-based text annotation.

5. Apparatus as set forth in claim 4 wherein at least some of said additional metadata includes information obtained from said one markup tag.

6. Apparatus as set forth in claim 4 wherein said given resource is accessed through the operating system of a computer which provides said given resource and wherein at least some of said additional metadata includes information obtained from said operating system.

7. Apparatus as set forth in claim 4 wherein at least some of said additional metadata s obtained via the Internet.

8. Apparatus for collecting and storing metadata describing a hypertext Web page, said Web page including markup tags which identify multimedia data from one or more different external resources, said apparatus comprising, in combination,

a parser for identifying said markup tags in said Web page,

processing means for analyzing the content of said multimedia data identified by said markup tags to generate metadata describing said multimedia data,

means for translating said metadata into a character-based text annotation describing said multimedia data, and

means for storing the combination of a copy of said Web page and said annotation to form an enhanced Web page suitable for processing by text-based indexing and searching facilities.

9. Apparatus as set forth in claim 8 wherein said text annotation is expressed in the Extensible Markup Language.

10. The method of automatically enhancing the content of a Web page which contains multimedia data incorporated by reference which comprises, in combination, the steps of:

identifying one or more markup tags in said Web page which respectively identify one or more external resources which provide said multimedia data;

generating metadata which de scribes said multimedia data,

translating said metadata into a character-based text annotation, and

inserting said annotation into said Web page to form an enhanced Web page suitable for processing by a character-based text processing system.

11. The method of automatically enhancing the content of a Web page as set forth in claim 10 wherein said step of identifying one or more markup tags comprises the steps of first identifying markup tags in said Web page and extracting the uniform resource locator (URL) of one of said external resources from at least selected ones of said markup tags.

12. The method of automatically enhancing the content of a Web page which contains multimedia data as set forth in claim 10 wherein said step of generating metadata includes the sub-steps of retrieving said multimedia data from said one or more external resources and analyzing the content of said multimedia data to extract said metadata there from.

13. The method of automatically enhancing the content of a Web page as set forth in claim 12 wherein said step of generating metadata comprises the sub-steps of identifying the data type of the multimedia data from each of said resources and then selecting a processing routine for multimedia of the identified data type from each of said resources.

14. The method of automatically enhancing the content of a Web page as set forth in claim 10 includes the further step of indexing said enhanced Web page to provide access to said Web page in response to queries expressing one or more attributes expressed in said text annotation.

15. The method of automatically enhancing the content of a Web page as set forth in claim 10 includes the further step of searching the content of said enhanced Web page in response to a search request to determine if attributes expressed in said search request are contained in said text annotation.

16. The method of automatically enhancing the content of a Web page as set forth in claim 13 includes the further step of indexing said enhanced Web page to provide access to said Web page in response to queries expressing one or more attributes expressed in said text annotation.

17. The method of automatically enhancing the content of a Web page as set forth in claim 13 includes the further step of searching the content of said enhanced Web page in response to a search request to determine if attributes expressed in said search request are contained in said text annotation.