Using visual techniques to manipulate data

• US 8,358,308 B2
• Filed: 06/27/2008
• Issued: 01/22/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 06/27/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Robertson, George G., Fisher, Danyel A., Lee, Bongshin, Fernandez, Roland L., Nachmanson, Lev Boris, Dwyer, Timothy Garry, Jakobsen, Mikkel Ronne, Kulyk, Olga, Kotler, Matthew Jay, Jewsbury, Kipper V., Welcker, Brian L., Kimchi, Gur, Holm-Peterson, Morten, Chan, Stella Yick, Weber, Jason J., Ruble, B. Scott, Krishnan, Murali R., Chronister, Benjamin L., Abeln, Christian Olaf
• Primary Examiner(s): CHOW, JEFFREY J
• Application Number:
  US12/163,759
• Publication Number:
  US 20090322756A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,670 Days
• Field of Search: 345/440
• 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:

one or more processors;

a memory communicatively coupled to the one or more processors, the memory comprising components including;

an aggregation component stored in the memory and executable by the one or more processors and configured to gather a plurality of data that represents a data set and render a visual representation of the data set in response to a request, the data set including a search history comprising an annotation associated with a relationship across two or more searches in the search history, wherein the relationship across the two or more searches is a manually created link, and the annotation includes data that is associated with the manually created link; and

a personalization component stored in the memory and executable by the one or more processors and configured to accept a customization that filters by a segment of at least one of the plurality of data, the aggregation component further configured to update 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, further comprising an incremental search module stored in the memory and executable by the one or more processors and configured to incrementally reveal relationships within the data set.

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

4. The system of claim 1, further comprising an interactive component stored in the memory and executable by the one or more processors and configured to allow a user to drill down into a linkage associated with two or more of the plurality of data to obtain more information related to the linkage.

5. The system of claim 1, further comprising a merge component stored in the memory and executable by the one or more processors and configured to combine two or more data sets, the personalization component being configured to apply customizations to the combined data sets.

6. The system of claim 1, further comprising a facet detection module stored in the memory and executable by the one or more processors and configured to aggregate the data set as a function of automatic facet detection.

7. The system of claim 1, further comprising a distribution module stored in the memory and executable by the one or more processors and configured to organize the data set in at least one of a time line, a bar chart, a histogram, a Venn diagram, or combinations thereof.

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

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

gathering a plurality of data into a data set in response to a first request comprising at least one character entry, the data set including an annotation associated with a relationship across two or more previously conducted searches, wherein the relationship across the two or more previously conducted searches is a manually created link, and the annotation includes data that is associated with the manually created link;

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;

incrementally revealing relationships across two or more of the plurality of data in response to a second request comprising an additional character entry;

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

applying the one or more customizations; and

outputting a result of the one or more customizations in a visualized format.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein 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 the at least one common segment.

11. The method of claim 9, further comprising dynamically altering the visual representation of the data set based on the incrementally revealing.

12. The method of claim 9, wherein the plurality of 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.

13. The method of claim 9, 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.

14. The method of claim 9, wherein the visual representation includes linked paths for related content and unlinked paths for unrelated content, wherein one or more of the linked or unlinked paths include customized annotations.

15. The method of claim 9, wherein the segment is information contained within one or more of the plurality of data.

16. A computer-executable system comprising:

means for gathering data to be included in a first data set and a second data set, the data being gathered as a function of a current search request and a search history that is inferred by the system to be related to the current search request, the search history comprising an annotation associated with a relationship across two or more searches in the search history, wherein the relationship across the two or more searches is a manually created link, and the annotation includes data that is associated with the manually created link;

means for providing a visual representation of related content between segments of the data;

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

means for obtaining a request to customize the visual representation to exclude a user specified related content; and

means for applying a customization to the first data set and the second data set based on the request to customize, the means for displaying the visual representation being configured to display the customization as a time line, a bar chart, a histogram, a Venn diagram, or combinations thereof.

17. The computer-executable system of claim 16, 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 being configured to display the merged data sets.

18. The computer-executable system of claim 16, the means for providing the visual representation being configured to utilize automatic facet detection.

19. The computer-executable system of claim 16, the means for providing the visual representation being configured to incrementally reveal relationships between the related content.