JP3323574B2 - Visualization display system for information retrieval device - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an information retrieval apparatus for retrieving information such as documents and images, and more particularly to a visualization of an information retrieval process which visualizes and displays a retrieval process and also displays a retrieval processing time. Related to display systems.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Generally, in an information retrieval apparatus for retrieving information such as a document or an image, it is important for a user to give a retrieval sentence (conditional expression), which greatly changes retrieval efficiency. Also, it is rare that desired information can be obtained in a single search without excess or deficiency, such as adding or changing search conditions by looking at the list of titles, requesting more detailed information for search results, etc. A series of processes is required.

[0003] As a conventional technique for making it easier to visually grasp the meaning of a search sentence, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. Hei 3-1598 is disclosed.
There is a technique as disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication No. In this technique, a search sentence is displayed by a graphical display method in which each concept of a search sentence is represented as a node, and a relation between each concept is represented as a link connecting each concept, and the same concept is related to a plurality of concepts. This is realized by a display method. This makes it possible to clearly confirm how the concepts in the search sentence are related to each other.

[0004]

In the above prior art, in order for a user to give an accurate search sentence, a conceptual structure in the search sentence is visually displayed graphically.
This makes it easy to change the relationship between concepts, delete and change unnecessary concepts, and edit the search text. However, there is no consideration for visually displaying the entire search process of the search. There is a problem that it is difficult to estimate the outline of the intermediate result and the final result or the processing time and the number of outputs of each processing.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to solve the above-mentioned problems of the prior art, and to improve the efficiency of retrieval by displaying the entire retrieval process in a diagram so as to be easily understood and displaying the retrieval time in an information retrieval device. It is an object of the present invention to provide a visualized display system for an information search process that can be performed in a specific manner.

[0006]

To achieve the above object, the present invention provides a database storing search target data, a search command input unit for inputting a search command,
An information search device comprising: a search processing unit that executes a search process in response to the search command; wherein the data received in the search command input unit and the data received from the search processing unit is a unit constituting a series of processes. A search process management unit for extracting required data and extracting a pattern pattern corresponding to the data received from the process management unit, and selecting the data received from the process management unit and the selected graphic pattern. And a visualization display unit for visually displaying a series of search processes by synthesizing the search process.

Further, the data synthesized by the visualization display section is stored, and the stored data is used in the next search.

Further, the process management unit includes means for calculating a search processing time in a unit constituting the series of search processes, and means for visually displaying the search processing time on the visualization display unit. It is provided with.

[0009]

The operation based on the above configuration will be described.

[0010] According to the present invention, at the time of information search, the search process management unit uses the search command and search condition, which are data input by the user, and the list display data, the number of data, and the like, which are information search results. Configure (create) a series of search process data. In addition to storing the search process data in the search process data storage unit,
This is sent to a visualization display, which visualizes this search process. This makes it easier for the user to understand the flow of a series of search processes, thereby improving search efficiency.

Also, data displayed on the visualization display section can be stored and used for the next search.

Further, the process management unit is provided with a means for calculating a search processing time in a unit constituting a series of search processes, and the visualization display unit is further provided with a means for visually displaying the search processing time. Since it is provided, it is also possible to predict the individual search processing time, the total processing time, and the like, together with the intermediate result of the search and the final processing result.

[0013]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a system for visualizing, displaying, storing and reusing information retrieval processes according to one embodiment of the present invention.

In FIG. 1, reference numeral 11 denotes a search command input unit which receives a user input of a search command and a search condition and issues an instruction to a search processing unit 12. It is a search processing unit that executes processing. Reference numeral 13 denotes a search process management unit that receives user input data and search result data, and configures, accumulates, and manages the search process. Reference numeral 14 denotes a visualization display unit that graphically displays the search process and displays it on a screen. Reference numeral 15 denotes a search process data storage unit that stores search process data created by the search process management unit 13. Reference numeral 16 denotes a search target database storing data to be searched, 17 denotes a process data pattern storage unit, and 18 denotes a process graphic correspondence table storage unit.

FIG. 2 shows an example of a screen output from the visualization display unit 14. Each process is represented by an ellipse like a search process 21, 21a or a document content retrieval 26, and its input data (retrieval conditions, etc.) is retrieved. The output data (retrieval result, etc.) is indicated by a title list 22 or a narrowed title list 24, which is indicated by a rectangle (box) like keys 20, 25 and condition designation 23.
Is indicated by a shaded rectangle. The data contents are shown in the rectangles, such as the number of search target data 27 and the number of extracted data 28. In addition, in the case of output data such as the title list 22 or the narrowed-down title list 24, a large data amount such as the title list window 29 can be scroll-displayed, and the shadow increases as the data amount increases. . In FIG. 2, title list 2
2 has 100 extracted data, which is larger than 30 extracted data in the narrowed-down title list 24, so that the shadow is larger.

Next, the processing in the search process management section 13 will be described with reference to FIGS. FIG. 4 is a processing flowchart of the search process management unit 13. In the search process management unit 13, first, the search command input unit 1
1 and the data of the retrieval processing result from the retrieval processing unit 12 are received (step 41). Next, necessary data is extracted from the received data in units (frame units such as rectangles and ellipses in FIG. 2) constituting a series of search processes. At this time, as shown in FIG. 2, for example, the search key 20 is extracted from the input data, and the number of search target data 27 and the number of extracted data 28 are extracted from the output data (search result). And a process data pattern collection 43 (corresponding to the process data pattern storage 1
The data is extracted for each type of process with reference to (stored in step 7) (step 42). Process data is created based on the extracted data (step 44) and stored in the search process data storage unit 15 (step 45). The stored process data is reused in a later search.

Next, the processing in the visualization display unit 14 will be described with reference to FIGS.

The visualization display unit 14 first receives the search process data created by the search process management unit 13 (step 51). For example, as shown in FIG. 2, the input data is a rectangle, and the processing data is an ellipse, referring to the correspondence table 53 between processes and figures (stored in the correspondence table storage unit 18 for processes and figures). The display figure is selected (step 52), and the process flow is visualized and displayed (step 54). Thereafter, display data is embedded in the displayed figure (step 55), and a process flow as shown in FIG. 2 is displayed. Further, when a series of search processes displayed on the visualization display unit 14 are edited (steps 56 and 58), the edited search process data is sent to the search process data storage unit 15 and converted into a command format. (Step 59) It is sent to the search command input section 11 and reused in the next search processing. Editing in the visualization display unit 14 can change input data such as the search key 20 and the condition designation 23 as well as delete a box of output data such as the title list 22 or combine input data into one. It can be a single box. Regarding the search result display therein, the user specifies the number of data such as the number of search target data 27 and the number of extracted data 28 and whether or not to record the search result such as the title list of the title list window 29. can do. FIG. 3 shows that the search key 20 and the condition designation 23 of FIG.
This is an example in which the box search target data 27 and the title list window 29 are specified not to be recorded (the narrowed title list 32). Search key 20 and condition specification 2
By joining 3 together, the title list of intermediate results 2
2 has been automatically deleted.

Next, the calculation of the search processing time will be described with reference to FIG. The process of FIG. 6 actually enters between steps 41 and 42 in FIG. First, it is determined whether or not the data received by the search process management unit 13 is a search command (step 61). If the data is a search command, the search start time at this time is recorded as search command-specific time data 64 (step 63). ). Step 6
In step 1, if the received data is not a search command, it is determined whether or not the data is a search result (step 62). Exit if not a search result,
If the received data is a search result, it indicates that the search process has been completed. Therefore, search start time data corresponding to the search result is read from the search command-specific time data 64 (step 65), and the read time is read. The processing time is calculated from the data and the time data at the end of the search (step 66). The calculated search processing time is extracted based on a collection of process data patterns.

In the above-described embodiment, the search process data storage unit 14 stores in the search process data
A series of search processes before and after editing in the visualization display unit 14 may be stored together. These stored search processes are reused when the next search is performed under the same search conditions, or when the search is performed with a slight modification.

[0022]

As described above in detail, according to the present invention, in the information search device, the search process data is created by the search process management unit, and the search process data is graphically displayed by the visualization display unit. As a result, the outline of the intermediate and final results of the search in the series of search processes, the processing time, the number of output records, and the like can be understood at a glance, and it is also useful as a reference when performing a new search.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a system configuration diagram of an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating an example of a search process display screen which is a screen output of the visualization display unit in FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of a search process display screen of a result edited by a visualization display unit.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing processing of a search process management unit.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing processing of a visualization display unit.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing a process of calculating a search processing time.

[Explanation of symbols]

 Reference Signs List 11 search command input unit 12 search processing unit 13 search process management unit 14 visualization display unit 15 search process data storage unit 16 search target database 17 process data pattern storage unit 18 process and figure correspondence table storage unit 20, 25 search key 21 Search processing 22 Title list 23 Condition specification 24 Retrieved title list 26 Document contents retrieval 27 Search target data 28 Extracted data 29 Title list window 30 Input data box 31 Search processing 32 Filtered title list 33 Search key 34 Document contents retrieval

Continuation of the front page (56) References JP-A-61-251932 (JP, A) JP-A-1-244521 (JP, A) JP-A-2-214977 (JP, A) JP-A-3-15981 (JP) JP-A-3-80369 (JP, A) JP-A-3-91069 (JP, A) JP-A-3-174655 (JP, A) JP-A-4-246771 (JP, A) 4-365172 (JP, A) Iwasaki et al., Personal Database System Using Guide Diagrams and Pointers, Journal of the Institute of Image Electronics Engineers of Japan, The Institute of Image Electronics Engineers of Japan, October 25, 1991, Vol. 19, No. 5, p. 305-311 Arikawa et al., Automated Display of Objects for Database Query, IEICE Technical Report, IEICE, Japan, IEICE, December 14, 1990, Vol. 90, no. 362 (DE90-27) pp. 25-32 Masatoshi Arikawa, Visualization of Questions for Dialogue Maps, IEICE Technical Report, Japan, The Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers, November 8, 1991, Vol. 91, No. 315 (AI 91-57), pp. 1-8 Matsui et al., Content and Retrieval in Information Sharing, Information Processing Society of Japan Research Report, Japan, Information Processing Society of Japan, May 15, 1992, VOL. 92, No. 34 (91-IM-6-2), p. 9-16 Seki, et al., Consideration of Data Visualization Method Using File Hierarchy Structure as an Example, Information Processing Society of Japan Research Report, Japan, Information Processing Society of Japan, March 2, 1993, Vol. 93, No. 15 (93-HI-47-12) pp. 85 -91 (58) Fields surveyed (Int. Cl. ⁷ , DB name) G06F 17/30 340 G06F 17/30 370 G06F 3/00 654 JICST file (JOIS)

Claims (3)

(57) [Claims] A search command input unit for inputting a search command;
A search processing unit that performs a search process in response to the search command, wherein the search command input unit and the data received from the search processing unit constitute a series of search processes. A search process management unit that extracts data to create required search process data; and a graphic pattern corresponding to the data received from the process management unit is selected, and the data received from the process management unit and the selected graphic are selected. A visualization display unit for visually recognizing a series of search processes by synthesizing a pattern. 2. The visualization display according to claim 1, wherein the data synthesized by the visualization display unit is stored, and the stored data is used in a next search. system. 3. The process management unit further includes means for calculating a search processing time in a unit constituting the series of search processes, and means for visually displaying the search processing time on the visualization display unit. The visualization display system in the information search device according to claim 1 or 2, further comprising: