Spatially enabled content management, discovery and distribution system for unstructured information management

• US 20090112812A1
• Filed: 10/29/2007
• Published: 04/30/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 10/29/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: BAE Systems Information and Electronic Systems Integration Incorporated (BAE Systems Plc)
• Original Assignee: BAE Systems Information Solutions Incorporated (BAE Systems Plc)
• Inventors: Ellis, John R., Hornbeek, Michael T., Meadows, Mark
• Granted Patent: US 8,195,630 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/38 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually

Abstract

What is provided is a spatially-enabled content management system in which unstructured information is data mined for location or spatial references, with the search query including not only the spatial reference that has been provided by the data mining but also other search query terms, thus to provide an analyst with rapid geo-searching for unstructured information management

Claims

1. A method for effectuating a search of unstructured information to provide for rapid querying of the unstructured information utilizing spatial searching, comprising the steps of:

for existing documents having unstructured information, ascertaining either implicit or explicit indications of spatial attributes of the unstructured information;

storing the documents with spatial attributes as metadata;

searching the stored documents in terms of metadata utilizing spatial search terms; and

,

returning documents having metadata corresponding to the spatial search term.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said storing step includes storing new documents having unstructured data, the unstructured data being mandatorily assigned metadata tags relating to spatial attributes.

3. The method of claim 1, and further including in the searching step the step of returning documents having metadata other than spatial metadata, thus to enable precise searches that combine spatial values and other values.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the other values are taken from the group consisting of author, publication date range, text, and word matches.

5. A method for providing a combined search of spatial and other attributes of unstructured information in documents, comprising the steps of:

ingesting and parsing an existing document having unstructured data, including the step of scanning the unstructured data for both implicit and explicit spatial references and for spatially meta-tagging the scanned existing document;

storing the existing document with spatial references as a metadata in a content management system repository;

ingesting new documents, including the step of providing each new document with mandatory metadata having at least one spatial reference;

storing the ingested new document with its spatial reference as metadata in the content management system repository;

publishing the documents having spatial metadata in the content management system repository;

text-indexing the published documents by providing each of the documents with a text index;

loading the text-indexed published documents into a distribution system for storage; and

,

accessing the distribution system with a search query including at least a spatial definition query.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the distribution system is also queried utilizing free text.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein the distribution system is also queried with non-spatial attributes.

8. The method of claim 5, wherein the distribution system is also queried using faceted navigation.

9. The method of claim 5, wherein the distribution system is queried using a search web service.

10. The method of claim 5, wherein the distribution system is searched using a user interface.

11. The method of claim 5, wherein the distribution system is queried in response to a query from a distribution manager set up to return documents from the distribution system requested by a user.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the distribution manager queries are based on a subscription system.

13. A method for searching new documents having unstructured information for spatial references, comprising the step of:

mandatorily providing spatial reference metadata during the creation of the new document.

14. A spatially-enabled content management system for the discovery and distribution of unstructured information, comprising:

an ingester for ingesting and parsing existing documents having unstructured information, said ingestion including an input translator for scanning the unstructured information in a document to generate at least one meta-tag relating to a spatial reference within the document;

a content management system repository storing the meta-tagged documents; and

,

a search engine including a query system for searching said documents using associated metadata to return documents having spatial reference metadata relating to a spatial search.

15. The apparatus of claim 14, and further including a storage and distribution system coupled to said content management system repository having a read-only memory for storing the documents with associated metadata so as to provide a spatially-enabled content management system in which unstructured information may be data mined for location or spatial references.

16. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein said search engine includes a module for generating a search query including not only a spatial reference but also other search query terms, such that information is returned from said search engine as a result of focused spatial, attribute and text searching.

17. A spatially-enabled content management system for the discovery and distribution of unstructured information, comprising:

a new document having unstructured information;

a metadata tagger for tagging the new document with metadata at least relating to a spatial reference;

a content management system repository storing only meta-tagged documents having a spatial meta-tag, whereby spatial meta-tagging is mandatory; and

,

a search engine including a query system for searching said documents using associated metadata to return documents having spatial reference metadata relating to a spatial search.

18. The apparatus of claim 17, and further including a storage and distribution system coupled to said content management system repository having a read-only memory for storing the documents with associated metadata so as to provide a spatially-enabled content management system in which unstructured information may be data mined for location or spatial references.

19. The apparatus of claim 17, wherein said search engine includes a module for generating a search query including not only a spatial reference but also other search query terms, such that information is returned from said search engine as a result of focused spatial, attribute and text searching.