Abstract: The present invention comprises a computer-implemented visualization model of similarity relationships between documents. It comprises performing a similarity search based on at least one attribute of a reference document to find at least one target document with similar attributes; creating a visual representation of the reference database document and the at least one target document; creating a visual representation of the similarities between the reference document and the at least one target document; and displaying the visual representations of the database documents and their similarities on a graphical user interface. The target documents that are similarity searched may reside in a plurality of databases. The similarity search returns a result set of target documents that are used by the visualization model to create the visual representation of the documents and the similarities between the documents.

Abstract: The present invention comprises a computer-implemented method for transforming data in a relational database to a hierarchical database. It comprises creating an import map that maps each relational database field to a hierarchical field in the hierarchical database using a relational database schema and a hierarchical database schema, using the import map to import data from the relational database; and transforming the relational data into hierarchical documents. The method further comprises creating a hierarchical database schema that corresponds to the relational database schema. The hierarchical documents may be stored in computer memory or on disk.