Automatic extraction and graphic visualization system and method

• US 6,041,331 A
• Filed: 12/12/1997
• Issued: 03/21/2000
• Est. Priority Date: 04/01/1997
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Manning & Napier Information Services LLC
• Original Assignee: Manning & Napier Information Services LLC
• Inventors: Weiner, Michael L., Kolb V, John Jacob, Chronis, Todd
• Primary Examiner(s): Black, Thomas G.
• Assistant Examiner(s): MILLS, JOHN G
• Application Number:
  US08/989,832
• Time in Patent Office: 830 Days
• Field of Search: 707/1-224
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/34 Browsing; Visualisation therefor
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99944 Object-oriented database structure

Abstract

According to the present invention, a method for extracting information from a plurality of documents for display. Information is extracted from a set of documents according to a set of pre-defined categories. A visual representation of the extracted information is provided to a user, who can apply one or more filters to the information in order to produce for display a visual representation of information content in the filtered information.

Claims

1. A method for analyzing and displaying thematic content of information contained in a plurality of documets in a computing system, said method comprising:

extracting one or more information units from a plurality of documents according to two or more instances of subject fields, including a first subject field and a second subject field, each information unit having a relationship to one or more of said subject fields;

displaying a plurality of panels, including a first panel and a second panel, each of said panels corresponding to each of said subject fields wherein said first panel comprises a visual representation of information units having a relationship with said fistr subject field and said second panel comprises a visual representation of information units having a relationship to said second subject field;

receiving an input, said input indicating a selection from one or more individual instances of filters;

applying individual instances of filters to the information units responsive to said input to produce a filtered set of information units; and

re-displaying said plurality of panels, wherein each of said plurality of panels comprises revised visual representations of information units, wherein said revised visual representation exclusively includes only those information units in said filtered set of information units.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein said applying individual instances of filters further comprises:

selecting a particular subject field by clicking on a panel corresponding to said subject field.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein said subject field is determined by an automatically produced coding of the information objects within said plurality of documents.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein said subject field is determined by a manually produced coding of the information objects within said plurality of documents.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein said visual representation comprises a bar chart indicating the number of documents containing each of the information units.

6. The method of claim 1 further comprising repeatedly performing the receiving, applying and redisplaying to further filter the documents.

7. The method of claim 1 further comprising displaying a list of documents corresponding to the information units being displayed, said list being updated for each successive application of the receiving applying, and re-displaying steps.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein said receiving an input is accessible to a user by a tab or button on an HTML document displayed to the user.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein said plurality of panels may be selectably arranged on a display screen according to a user input.

10. The method of claim 7 further comprising providing a synoptic text of a user selected document in said list of displayed documents.

11. The method of claim 7 further comprising providing a full text of a user selected document in said list of displayed documents.