Using multiple search engines to search multimedia data

• US 5,873,080 A
• Filed: 03/26/1997
• Issued: 02/16/1999
• Est. Priority Date: 09/20/1996
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Coden, Anni Rosa, Mak, Sue-Wen, Cholchin So, Edward
• Primary Examiner(s): Black, Thomas G.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Jung, David Yiuk
• Application Number:
  US08/827,318
• Time in Patent Office: 692 Days
• Field of Search: 707/1-206, 348/714-720
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/40 of multimedia data, e.g. slideshows comprising image and additional audio data retrieval of still image data G06F16/50; retrieval of audio data G06F16/60; retrieval of video data G06F16/70
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/432 Query formulation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/48 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99934 Query formulation, input preparation, or translation
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99935 Query augmenting and refining, e.g. inexact access
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99936 Pattern matching access
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99943 Generating database or data structure, e.g. via user interface
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99945 Object-oriented database structure processing

Abstract

A query comprising of sub queries, each of which could be of different media types are used to search a collection of multimedia documents in a database. These sub queries are parsed according to media type and operators/functions between these sub queries are recorded creating a set of query objects and query operator objects. The query interface than passes the query objects to the appropriate application programming interfaces (API'"'"'s) of the various search engines. Furthermore, it applies the query object operators to the respective interim results obtained by executing a query object. Then the interim results are combined in a global result object that is processed using a user specification to produce a single combined result list that conforms to user specified requirements.

Claims

1. A computer system that uses a query with one or more media types to search a database with a collection of one or more multimedia documents, each document having one or more parts, each part being of a single media type, the system comprising:

a. a graphical user interface allowing a user to enter the query comprising of one or more query conditions each with zero or more logical operators and to further enter a user specification specifying how zero or more results of the query conditions are combined;

b. a user interface support process that parses the query into a combined query object, the combined query object comprising of one or more query objects and zero or more query operator objects, each of the query objects being of one media type, and the query operator objects determined by the user specification;

c. one or more search engines, each search engine being able to search the collection of documents by one media type;

d. a query interface that calls one or more of the search engines for each one of the query objects according to media type, the search engine executing the query object to produce an interim result object that satisfies the executed query object, each interim result object being a quartet of four fields, the fields being a part number of one of the document parts, a document number of one of the documents, a rank of the document, and the respective media type of the query object, the query interface applying the query operator objects to the interim result objects produced by the respective query objects as defined by the user specification; and

e. a converter that combines all the interim result objects in an global result object.

2. A system, as in claim 1, where the system further comprises:

f. a combiner that uses one or more user viewing objects defined by the user specifications to operate on the global result object to produce a result list that satisfies the query according to the user specifications.

3. A system, as in claim 2, where the user specification defines how one or more functions operate one or more of the fields.

4. A system, as in claim 3, where the functions include:

sorting, matching, selecting, and ranking.

5. A system, as in claim 1, where the query operator object includes any one of the following:

AND, OR, AND NOT, OR NOT, parenthesis, and a function.

6. A system, as in claim 5, where all the query operator objects are AND and hence the interim result object obtained by executing a query object can be used to limit the scope used in executing a next query object.

7. A computer server on a network that uses a query with one or more media types to search a database with a collection of one or more multimedia documents, each document having one or more parts, each part being of a single media type, the server comprising:

a. an interface for receiving a query over the network, the query having zero or more logical operators and further receiving zero or more user specifications into the system, the user specifications specifying how zero or more results of the query are combined;

b. a user interface support process that parses the query into a combined query object, the combined query object comprising of one or more query objects and zero or more query operator objects, each of the query objects being of one media type and the query operator objects determined by the user specification;

c. one or more search engines, each search engine being able to search the collection of documents by one media type;

d. a query interface that calls one of the search engines for each one of the query objects according to media type, the search engine executing the query object to produce an interim result object that satisfies the executed query object, each interim result object being a quartet of four fields, the fields being a part number of one of the document parts, a document number of one of the documents, a rank of the document, and the respective media type of the query object, the query interface applying the query operator objects to the interim result objects produced by the respective query objects; and

e. a converter that combines the interim result objects in an interim global result object.

8. A server, as in claim 7, where the server further receives one or more user specifications over the network and the system further comprises:

f. a combiner that uses one or more viewing objects defined by the user specifications to operate on the global result object to produce a result list that satisfies the query according to the user specifications.

9. A method for searching a database of multimedia documents comprising of the steps of:

a. parsing a query into a combined query object, the combined query object comprising of one or more query objects and zero or more query operator objects, each of the query objects being of one media type;

b. calling of one or more search engines to execute the query to produce an interim result object that satisfies the executed query;

c. applying the query operator objects to the interim result objects produced by the respective query objects; and

d. combining the interim result objects in an global result object.

10. A method, as in claim 9, further comprising the step of:

f. operating on the global result object with one or more user specifications to produce a result list of documents that satisfy the query according to the user specifications.

11. A system for searching a database of multimedia documents comprising of the steps:

a. means for parsing a query into a combined query object, the combined query object comprising one or more query objects and zero or more query operator objects, each of the query objects being of one media type;

b. means for calling one or more search engines to execute the query to produce an interim result object that satisfies the executed query;

c. means for applying the query operator objects to the interim result objects produced by the respective query objects; and

d. means for combining the interim result objects in an global result object.