Representation of datasets using view-specific visual bundlers

• US 9,710,430 B2
• Filed: 05/09/2014
• Issued: 07/18/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 05/09/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: SAP SE
• Original Assignee: SAP SE
• Inventors: Werner, Horst
• Primary Examiner(s): Saeed, Usmaan
• Assistant Examiner(s): Weinrich, Brian E.
• Application Number:
  US14/274,254
• Publication Number:
  US 20150324453A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,166 Days
• Field of Search: 707738
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/26 Visual data mining; Browsing structured data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/282 Hierarchical databases, e.g. IMS, LDAP data stores or Lotus Notes
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/287 Visualization; Browsing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/35 Clustering; Classification
• 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 40/186 Templates

Abstract

Techniques are described for providing visual bundlers that group and represent specified data subsets of very large datasets in a manner that is expressive and intuitive for a user, and which provide a dynamic, configurable visualization that may be leveraged by the user to search, aggregate, or otherwise interact with the data of a very large dataset. By nesting such visual bundlers, a geometric equivalent of a dynamically-generated search tree is realized, in which a structure for executing a search for a desired data element is not required to be fixed or otherwise predefined. Consequently, during a runtime of providing related visualizations, multiple alternative search trees may be created for the same underlying content, with minimal effort, and in a manner that is highly intuitive and useful for the user.

Claims

1. A system including instructions recorded on a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium, and executable by at least one processor, the system comprising:

a request handler configured to cause the at least one processor to receive a request for a visualization of plurality of data elements, the request including a common property;

a property filter configured to cause the at least one processor to filter the plurality of data elements based on the common property, to obtain data subsets;

a template selector configured to cause the at least one processor to access at least one grouping criterion linking the common property with at least one layout template providing a geometric representation of the common property; and

a layout engine configured to cause the at least one processor to generate, based on the at least one layout template, a plurality of visual bundlers, each visual bundler corresponding to a data subset of the data subsets, and further configured to display the visual bundlers, each illustrating its corresponding data subset, to thereby provide the visualization in a manner that conveys the common property and a relationship of the data subsets to one another with respect to the common property,

wherein the layout engine is further configured to cause the at least one processor to recursively generate additional, nested visual bundlers within at least one of the plurality of visual bundlers, the nested visual bundlers being embedded within one another in a plurality of nesting levels, each nesting level associated with at least one corresponding level-specific common property and associated data subset.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the request handler is configured to cause the at least one processor to execute the request against a database to retrieve the data elements.

3. The system of claim 1, being further configured to destroy the visual bundlers and re-group the data elements using a second plurality of visual bundlers, in which the layout engine is configured to cause the at least one processor to generate, based on at least a second layout template linked to the second common property by the at least one grouping criterion, the second plurality of visual bundlers, each illustrating a corresponding second data subset, to thereby provide a second visualization in a manner that conveys the second common property and a second relationship of the second data subsets to one another with respect to the second common property.

4. The system of claim 1, comprising a template repository storing the plurality of layout templates, including the at least one layout template, wherein the plurality of layout templates are stored in a hierarchical structure in which layout templates are embeddable within one another at each level of the hierarchical structure to thereby enable formation of the nesting levels of visual bundlers.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein, within each visual bundler, each data subset is further grouped according to a second common property to form a second nesting level of the plurality of nesting levels, and, for each visual bundler, the layout engine is configured to cause the at least one processor to generate, based on at least a second layout template, an embedded plurality of visual bundlers at the second nesting level, each of the embedded plurality of visual bundlers identifying a further data subset of the corresponding data subset, and further configured to display the embedded visual bundlers within each visual bundler.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the embedded visual bundlers at the second nesting level are recursively regrouped within the visual bundlers, according to a third common property, to thereby form further embedded visual bundlers at a third nesting level of the plurality of nesting levels.

7. The system of claim 1, being further configured to magnify the embedded, nested visual bundlers, including retrieving data to be displayed therein from a database in response to the data reaching a data threshold, and prior to the data reaching a visual threshold at which rendering of the data is initiated.

8. The system of claim 1, further comprising an aggregator configured to cause the at least one processor to aggregate, for each visual bundler, data values of the included data subset for display thereof in conjunction with the corresponding visual bundler.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the layout engine is configured to determine a position and size of each visual bundler, relative to remaining visual bundlers, based on data values of the data subsets of each visual bundler.

10. A computer-implemented method for executing instructions stored on a non-transitory computer readable storage medium, the method comprising:

providing a dynamically-generated visualization of a search tree for searching a data set to identify at least one data record, the dynamically generated visualization including nested visual bundlers having a plurality of nesting levels, wherein each nesting level is associated with a corresponding common property defining data subsets within visual bundlers of that nesting level, and each successive nesting level is generated based on its corresponding common property as identified in conjunction with display of a preceding nesting level, the providing including

receiving a first request for a first visualization of plurality of data elements, the first request including a first common property;

filtering the plurality of data elements based on the first common property, to obtain first data subsets;

accessing at least one grouping criterion linking the first common property with at least one layout template providing a geometric representation of the first common property;

generating, based on the at least one layout template, a first plurality of visual bundlers, each visual bundler corresponding to a data subset of the first data subsets; and

displaying the first plurality of visual bundlers, each illustrating its corresponding data subset, to thereby provide the first visualization in a manner that conveys the first common property and a relationship of the first data subsets to one another with respect to the first common property,

wherein the receiving, filtering, accessing, generating, and displaying are recursively repeated at each of the nesting levels to identify the at least one data record within a bottom-most nesting level.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

destroying the first visual bundlers and re-grouping the data elements using a second plurality of visual bundlers and second common property, including

generating, based on at least a second layout template linked to the second common property by the at least one grouping criterion, the second plurality of visual bundlers, each illustrating a corresponding second data subset, to thereby provide a second visualization in a manner that conveys the second common property and a second relationship of the second data subsets to one another with respect to the second common property.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein the at least one layout template is stored within a plurality of layout templates within a template repository, and wherein the plurality of layout templates are stored in a hierarchical structure in which layout templates are embeddable within one another at each level of the hierarchical structure to thereby enable formation of the nesting levels of visual bundlers.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein, within each visual bundler of the first visual bundler, each data subset is further grouped according to a second common property defining a second nesting level of the plurality of nesting levels, and further including

generating, based on at least a second layout template, an embedded second plurality of visual bundlers, each of the embedded second plurality of visual bundlers identifying a further data subset of the corresponding data subset, and

displaying the embedded second plurality of visual bundlers within each visual bundler of the first plurality of visual bundlers.

14. The method of claim 13, further including recursively regrouping the embedded visual bundlers at the second nesting level within the first plurality of visual bundlers, according to a third common property, to thereby form further embedded visual bundlers at a third nesting level of the plurality of nesting levels.

15. A computer program product, the computer program product being tangibly embodied on a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium and comprising instructions that, when executed by at least one computing device to, are configured to cause the at least one computing device to:

receive a first request for a visualization of plurality of data elements, the first request including a first common property;

filter the plurality of data elements based on the first common property, to obtain first data subsets;

generate, based on at least one layout template, a first plurality of visual bundlers, each visual bundler corresponding to a data subset of the first data subsets;

display the first plurality of visual bundlers, each illustrating its corresponding data subset, to thereby provide the visualization in a manner that conveys the first common property and a relationship of the first data subsets to one another with respect to the first common property;

receive, for at least one of the first plurality of visual bundlers, a second request identifying a second common property;

filter the plurality of data elements included within at least one of the first plurality of visual bundlers, based on the second common property, to obtain second data subsets within the at least one of the first plurality of visual bundlers;

generate, based on the at least one layout template, a second plurality of visual bundlers embedded within the at least one of the first plurality of visual bundlers;

display the second plurality of visual bundlers, each illustrating its corresponding data subset, to thereby modify the visualization to include the second common property and a relationship of the second data subsets to one another with respect to the first common property and the second common property.

16. The computer program product of claim 15, wherein the instructions, when executed, are further configured to cause the at least one processor to:

access at least one grouping criterion linking the first common property and the second common property with at least one layout template providing a geometric representation of the first common property and the second common property, respectively.

17. The computer program product of claim 15, comprising a template repository storing a plurality of layout templates, including the at least one layout template, wherein the plurality of layout templates are stored in a hierarchical structure in which layout templates are embeddable within one another at each level of the hierarchical structure.

18. The computer program product of claim 17, wherein the embedded second plurality of visual bundlers are recursively regrouped, according to a third common property.

19. The computer program product of claim 15, wherein the instructions, when executed, are further configured to cause the at least one processor to:

magnify the embedded visual bundlers, including retrieving data to be displayed therein from a database in response to the data reaching a data threshold, and prior to the data reaching a visual threshold at which rendering of the data is initiated.