Methods of systems using geographic meta-metadata in information retrieval and document displays

摘要

A computer-implemented method involving a corpus of documents. The method includes accepting search criteria from a user, the search criteria including a domain identifier identifying a domain and including a filter condition specifying a geometric relationship between co-referenced locations; in response to accepting the search criteria from the user, searching among the corpus of documents to identify a set of documents, wherein each document among the set of documents contains anywhere within the document location-related information that refers to a location within the domain and satisfies the filter condition, and wherein the set of documents only includes documents that satisfy the filter condition; and identifying to the user the documents in the set of documents.

主权项

1. A computer-implemented method of displaying information about a document that includes a plurality of spatial identifiers each of which identifies a corresponding location within a metric space and at least two of the locations of the spatial identifiers have a geometric relationship to each other, said method comprising:
displaying at least a portion of content from the document, wherein the at least one portion of content is a natural language; displaying a map image of a portion of the metric space; displaying a visual indicator at a position on the map image representing the location that corresponds to one of said plurality of spatial identifiers; visually indicating that the location corresponding to the visual indicator has associated data that characterizes the geometric relationship between that location and the location of another spatial identifier in the document, wherein the geometric relationship is determined by a path hierarchy for each location; and visually differentiating, by visually promoting and highlighting differently, the at least two corresponding locations based on attributes that are defined with reference to the document, wherein the locations that are metonymic are given less prominent visual emphasis than other locations.