Content profiling to dynamically configure content processing

• US 8,473,467 B2
• Filed: 06/07/2009
• Issued: 06/25/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 01/02/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Inventors: Levy, Michael Robert, Mansfield, Philip Andrew
• Primary Examiner(s): Saeed, Usmaan
• Assistant Examiner(s): Hutton, Nan
• Application Number:
  US12/479,852
• Publication Number:
  US 20100174732A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,479 Days
• Field of Search: 715/234, 707/694
• US Class Current: 707/694
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/93 Document management systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/10 Text processing natural language analysis G06F40/20; semantic analysis G06F40/30; processing or translation of natural language G06F40/40
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/103 Formatting, i.e. changing of presentation of documents automatic justification G06F40/189; automatic line break hyphenation G06F40/191
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/106 Display of layout of documents; Previewing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/117 Tagging; Marking up details of markup languages G06F40/143; Designating a block; Setting of attributes style sheets, e.g. eXtensible Stylesheet Language Transformation [XSLT], G06F40/154
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/126 Character encoding
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/143 Markup, e.g. Standard Generalized Markup Language [SGML] or Document Type Definition [DTD]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/163 Handling of whitespace
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/174 Form filling; Merging
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/186 Templates
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/205 Parsing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/40 Processing or translation of natural language natural language analysis G06F40/20; semantic analysis G06F40/30
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/413 Classification of content, e.g. text, photographs or tables
• 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

Some embodiments provide a method that receives an unstructured document including a number of primitive elements. The method identifies a default set of document reconstruction operations for reconstructing the unstructured document to define a structured document. The method performs at least one of the document reconstruction operations from the default set. Based on results of the performed document reconstruction operations, the method identifies a profile for the unstructured document. The method modifies the set of document reconstruction operations for reconstructing the unstructured document according to the identified profile.

Claims

1. A method for defining a program for reconstructing a document, the method comprising:

defining a default set of document reconstruction operations for (i) identifying sets of primitive elements in an unstructured document that comprises a plurality of unassociated primitive elements and (ii) defining associations between the sets of primitive elements as structural elements in order to define a structured document from the unstructured document, wherein the primitive elements comprise at least one of glyphs and vector graphics;

defining a hierarchical set of profiles, each particular profile comprising (i) a set of clauses specifying potential results of previously-performed document reconstruction operations and (ii) instructions for modifying the set of document reconstruction operations to perform when actual results of the previously-performed document reconstruction operations match the set of clauses for the particular profile in order to define a modified set of document reconstruction operations different from the default set of document reconstruction operations, the results of the previously-performed document reconstruction operations comprising the structural elements defined as associations between sets of primitive elements of the document by at least one of the performed document reconstruction operations, wherein instructions from a profile at a lower level in the hierarchical set of profiles override instructions from a profile at a higher level; and

defining a module for matching results of the previously-performed document reconstruction operations for a particular portion of the document to one of a plurality of profiles at a particular level in the hierarchical set of profiles in order to modify the set of document reconstruction operations to perform for the particular portion of the document, wherein the particular level of the hierarchy corresponds to the particular portion of the document.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the unstructured document is a vector graphics document.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the unstructured document is a portable document format (PDF) document.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the structured document comprises a hierarchical model of the unstructured document.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the hierarchical set of profiles comprises profiles for at least two of documents, sections, pages, and zones, wherein the particular portion is one of a document, a section, a page, and a zone.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein each document profile specifies a particular set of possible page profiles and each page profile specifies a particular set of possible zone profiles.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the set of page profiles specified by a first document profile comprises a particular page profile and the set of page profiles specified by a second document profile also comprises the particular page profile.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the instructions of a particular profile comprise a subset of profiles at a lower level in the hierarchical set of profiles that should be tested when the actual results of the previously-performed document reconstruction results match the set of clauses for the particular profile.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the instructions of a particular profile comprise instructions to not perform a particular document reconstruction operation.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the particular profile is a profile for a page and the set of clauses for the particular profile specifies that the page has only one column of text, wherein the instructions of the particular profile comprise instructions to not perform operations for splitting lines of text.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the instructions of a particular profile comprise instructions regarding how to perform a particular document reconstruction operation.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the instructions of a particular profile comprise instructions specifying a particular reconstruction process the results of which should be removed from the actual results.

13. A non-transitory machine readable medium storing a program which when executed by at least one processing unit reconstructs a document, the program comprising

a default set of document reconstruction operations for (i) identifying sets of primitive elements in an unstructured document that comprises a plurality of unassociated primitive elements and (ii) defining associations between the sets of primitive elements as structural elements in order to define a structured document from the unstructured document, wherein the primitive elements comprise at least one of glyphs and vector graphics;

a hierarchical set of profiles, each particular profile comprising (i) a set of clauses specifying potential results of previously-performed document reconstruction operations and (ii) instructions for modifying the set of document reconstruction operations to perform when actual results of the previously-performed document reconstruction operations match the set of clauses for the particular profile in order to define a modified set of document reconstruction operations different from the default set of document reconstruction operations, the results of the previously-performed document reconstruction operations comprising the structural elements defined as associations between sets of primitive elements of the document by at least one of the performed document reconstruction operations, wherein instructions from a profile at a lower level in the hierarchical set of profiles override instructions from a profile at a higher level; and

a module for matching results of the previously-performed document reconstruction operations for a particular portion of the document to one of a plurality of profiles at a particular level in the hierarchical set of profiles in order to modify the set of document reconstruction operations to perform for the particular portion of the document, wherein the particular level of the hierarchy corresponds to the particular portion of the document.

14. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 13, wherein the hierarchical set of profiles comprises profiles for at least two of documents, sections, pages, and zones, wherein the particular portion is one of a document, a section, a page, and a zone.

15. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 14, wherein each document profile specifies a particular set of possible page profiles and each page profile specifies a particular set of possible zone profiles.

16. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 15, wherein the set of page profiles specified by a first document profile comprises a particular page profile and the set of page profiles specified by a second document profile also comprises the particular page profile.

17. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 13, wherein the instructions of a particular profile comprise a subset of profiles at a lower level in the hierarchical set of profiles that should be tested when the actual results of the previously-performed document reconstruction results match the set of clauses for the particular profile.

18. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 13, wherein the instructions of a particular profile comprise instructions to not perform a particular document reconstruction operation.

19. The non-transitory machine readable medium of claim 18, wherein the particular profile is a profile for a page and the set of clauses for the particular profile specifies that the page has only one column of text, wherein the instructions of the particular profile comprise instructions to not perform operations for splitting lines of text.

20. A system comprising:

a set of processing units for executing sets of instructions; and

a memory storing a program which when executed by at least one of the processing units reconstructs a document, the program comprising

a default set of document reconstruction operations for (i) identifying sets of primitive elements in an unstructured document that comprises a plurality of unassociated primitive elements and (ii) defining associations between the sets of primitive elements as structural elements in order to define a structured document from the unstructured document, wherein the primitive elements comprise at least one of glyphs and vector graphics;

a hierarchical set of profiles, each particular profile comprising (i) a set of clauses specifying potential results of previously-performed document reconstruction operations and (ii) instructions for modifying the set of document reconstruction operations to perform when actual results of the previously-performed document reconstruction operations match the set of clauses for the particular profile in order to define a modified set of document reconstruction operations different from the default set of document reconstruction operations, the results of the previously-performed document reconstruction operations comprising the structural elements defined as associations between sets of primitive elements of the document by at least one of the performed document reconstruction operations, wherein instructions from a profile at a lower level in the hierarchical set of profiles override instructions from a profile at a higher level; and

a module for matching results of the previously-performed document reconstruction operations for a particular portion of the document to one of a plurality of profiles at a particular level in the hierarchical set of profiles in order to modify the set of document reconstruction operations to perform for the particular portion of the document, wherein the particular level of the hierarchy corresponds to the particular portion of the document.

21. The system of claim 20, wherein the instructions of a particular profile comprise instructions regarding how to perform a particular document reconstruction operation.

22. The system of claim 20, wherein the instructions of a particular profile comprise instructions specifying a particular reconstruction process the results of which should be removed from the actual results.

23. The system of claim 20, wherein the unstructured document is a vector graphics document.

24. The system of claim 20, wherein the unstructured document is a portable document format (PDF) document.

25. The system of claim 20, wherein the structured document comprises a hierarchical model of the unstructured document.