Method and apparatus for removing redundant information from digital documents

摘要

Method and apparatus for reconstructing new documents from a group of old ones by removing the existing redundant information. Redundant information (images, text paragraphs) from retrieved multimedia documents is removed. Each document consists of two main parts stored in different databases. The first part of a document represents text paragraphs, the second part consists of the images and drawings related with the text paragraphs. An information reduction methodology examines first the text paragraphs of each document related with a specific topic, and removes the redundant information, such as same or similar paragraphs, by keeping pointers useful for a future reconstruction of the original documents. The remaining text paragraphs and the set of points are used to compose the first version of a new document. The invention also examines all the images related with the set of original documents and removes the same or similar images while keeping pointers that could assist a future reconstruction of the original documents. The invention merges text-paragraphs and images and creates the first stage new document.