Abstract: Method and system to enable a user to view large collections of hierarchically linked information on a computer based display. A tree structure visualization is created which presents a representation of the complete collection of information on the display. The visualization fits completely within a fixed area of the computer based display, negating the need to scroll information into the display area. The visualization is based on identified focus nodes and through calculation of a Degree of Interest (DOI) for each of the nodes based in the structure. Layout and presentation of the visualization structure is based on the DOI values in combination with considerations of available display space. A user may dynamically manipulate views of the structure by selecting one or more focus nodes, thus causing a recalculation of the degree of interest.

Abstract: A method for the conversion and display of tree-structured information to a “treetable”, a table-like display structure, in which each path from a root to a leaf node is represented by a single column, and cells representing the immediate successors of a node are placed immediately under that node. Variation in the amount of space given to cells within particular columns is used to allow more detail to be given for selected paths and subtrees. Extraction of subparts of a treetable into another such structure is used for deeper exploration of trees. The treatable structure is also suitable for use as a selector and guide to the reading, in auxiliary displays, of the concatenated node content associated with either (a) individual columns (representing full paths), or (b) all successors to a given node.

Abstract: A method for the conversion and display of tree-structured information to a “treetable”, a table-like display structure, in which each path from a root to a leaf node is represented by a single column, and cells representing the immediate successors of a node are placed immediately under that node. Variation in the amount of space given to cells within particular columns is used to allow more detail to be given for selected paths and subtrees. Extraction of subparts of a treetable into another such structure is used for deeper exploration of trees. The treetable structure is also suitable for use as a selector and guide to the reading, in auxiliary displays, of the concatenated node content associated with either (a) individual columns (representing full paths), or (b) all successors to a given node.

Abstract: Method and system to enable a user to view large collections of linked information on a computer based display. A visualization is created which presents a representation of the complete collection of information on the display. The visualization fits completely within a fixed area of the computer-based display, negating the need to scroll information into the display area. The visualization is based on identified focus nodes and through calculation of a Degree of Interest (DOI) for each of the nodes based in the structure. Layout and presentation of the visualization structure is based on the DOI values in combination with considerations of available display space. A user may dynamically manipulate views of the structure by selecting one or more focus nodes, thus causing a recalculation of the degree of interest.

Abstract: A software visualization tool consistent with the present invention integrates OLAP functionality with focus+context based techniques for navigation through and inspection of large multidimensional datasets. Focus+context based navigation techniques are used to increase the clarity and information content provided to the user. The visualization tool supports a number of operations of the data set, including: select-slice, aggregation, promote/demote, repeat-variables, and sort.

Abstract: Methods and Systems for analyzing data of a user viewing a display of dynamic hypermedia pages through a browser including monitoring and storing location and time of the user's gaze as eyetracker data, processing the eyetracker data into fixation data, monitoring and storing content of the displayed pages into a memory, restoring the displayed pages from the memory, mapping the fixations data onto the restored pages to thereby identify elements-of-regard, and storing the identified elements-of-regard in an elements-of-regard database.

Abstract: Method and system to enable a user to view large collections of hierarchically linked information on a computer based display. A tree structure visualization is created which presents a representation of the complete collection of information on the display. The visualization fits completely within a fixed area of the computer based display, negating the need to scroll information into the display area. The visualization is based on identified focus nodes and through calculation of a Degree of Interest (DOI) for each of the nodes based in the structure. Layout and presentation of the visualization structure is based on the DOI values in combination with considerations of available display space. A user may dynamically manipulate views of the structure by selecting one or more focus nodes, thus causing a recalculation of the degree of interest.

Abstract: A method for generating a tree structure representation of a generalized graph structure for display includes the more important links in the representation. Usage parameters are referenced in generating the tree structure from the generalized graph structure. Frequency, recency, spacing of accesses, and path information are exemplary types of usage parameters. A breadth-first or depth-first traversal of the graph references usage parameters associated with each node or link. The usage parameters which are associated with each node are referenced in order to determine the visitation order. The visitation order is determined by visiting the highest used nodes or links first. A method of displaying the tree structure references the usage parameters to determine the positioning of the nodes in the layout of the tree structure. In a preferred embodiment, the root node is positioned in the center of the layout. In one example, sibling nodes are spread out on links which emanate radially about their parent.

Abstract: A display system for displaying lists of linked documents. The present invention is implemented for displaying lists of related pages downloaded from the World Wide Web. The list of pages is displayed in a book metaphor termed a WebBook. The book metaphor is desirable since it inherently conveys the notion of the pages being related. When displayed, two active pages are displayed at one time. For the WebBook, each page in the list is converted into a page object and will represent a left or right page. Page objects representing a left page will have an axis of rotation along a right edge (as viewed orthogonally) while page objects representing a right page will have an axis of rotation along a left edge (as viewed orthogonally). The changing of pages is animated. Various user interface controls are provided for traversing the pages of the book, creating book marks, scanning pages, scaling the contents of a page, scrolling through pages, etc.

Abstract: Method and system to enable a user to view large collections of linked information on a computer based display. A visualization is created which presents a representation of the complete collection of information on the display. The visualization fits completely within a fixed area of the computer-based display, negating the need to scroll information into the display area. The visualization is based on identified focus nodes and through calculation of a Degree of Interest (DOI) for each of the nodes based in the structure. Layout and presentation of the visualization structure is based on the DOI values in combination with considerations of available display space. A user may dynamically manipulate views of the structure by selecting one or more focus nodes, thus causing a recalculation of the degree of interest.

Abstract: Methods and Systems for analyzing data of a user viewing a display of dynamic hypermedia pages through a browser including monitoring and storing location and time of the user's gaze as eyetracker data, processing the eyetracker data into fixation data, monitoring and storing content of the displayed pages into a memory, restoring the displayed pages from the memory, mapping the fixations data onto the restored pages to thereby identify elements-of-regard, and storing the identified elements-of-regard in an elements-of-regard database.

Abstract: A method for generating a tree structure representation of a generalized graph structure for display includes the more important links in the representation. Usage parameters are referenced in generating the tree structure from the generalized graph structure. Frequency, recency, spacing of accesses, and path information are exemplary types of usage parameters. A breadth-first or depth-first traversal of the graph references usage parameters associated with each node or link. The usage parameters which are associated with each node are referenced in order to determine the visitation order. The visitation order is determined by visiting the highest used nodes or links first. A method of displaying the tree structure references the usage parameters to determine the positioning of the nodes in the layout of the tree structure. In a preferred embodiment, the root node is positioned in the center of the layout. In one example, sibling nodes are spread out on links which emanate radially about their parent.

Abstract: A method for displaying in a coherent manner the changes over time of a web site's structure, usage, and content is disclosed. Time tubes are generated by a method of displaying a related series of graphs. Time tubes illustrate changes in a graph that undergoes one or more transformations from one state to another. The transformations are displayed using the length of the cylindrical tube, filling the length of the time tube with planar slices which represent the data at various stages of the transformations. Time tubes may encode several dimensions of the transformations simultaneously by altering the representation of size, color, and layout among the planar slices. Temporal transformations occur when web pages are added or deleted over time. Value-based transformations include node colors, which may be used to encode a specific page's usage parameter. Spatial transformations include the scaling of physical dimension as graphs expand or contract in size.

Abstract: Methods for displaying results of a spreading activation algorithm and for defining an activation input vector for the spreading activation algorithm are disclosed. A planar disk tree is used to represent the generalized graph structure being modeled in a spreading activation algorithm. Activation bars on some or all nodes of the planar disk tree in the dimension perpendicular to the disk tree encode the final activation level resulting at the end of N iterations of the spreading activation algorithm. The number of nodes for which activation bars are displayed may be a predetermined number, a predetermine fraction of all nodes, or a determined by a predetermined activation level threshold. The final activation levels resulting from activation spread through more than one flow network corresponding to the same generalized graph are displayed as color encoded segments on the activation bars. Content, usage, topology, or recommendation flow networks may be used for spreading activation.

Abstract: A method is disclosed for operating a processor-controlled system to produce a table image including graphical display objects in each of the cell regions indirectly representing the data values in an underlying n-dimensional (nD) information data array. Request signal data is received from a input signal source to present the table image in the display area of a display device connected to the processor-controlled system. In response to the request signal data, for each cell in the table image, the source data value and data type of a source data item in the nD data array is obtained, and a cell presentation type is selected using the data type. A graphical display object having at least one display feature representative of the data type of the data value is produced from the cell presentation type, and image definition data defining table image and the graphical display object for each cell is provided to a system display device for display.

Abstract: The method and apparatus of the present invention generates clusters of documents in a collection of linked documents based on co-citation analysis. The frequency linkage is determined for each document in the collection. In other words, the number of times each document is linked to by another document in the collection is determined. Further, a minimum frequency linkage (link frequency threshold) is specified based on a predetermined minimum frequency of document linkage. Additionally, a list of pairs of documents that are linked to by the same document is created so that each of the pairs of documents has a count of the number of times (co-citation frequency) that they are both linked to by another document. Pairs of linked documents are clustered using a suitable co-citation technique.

Abstract: A method for operating a processor-controlled machine produces a single-image compressed view of a multi-image table by replacing the character image information in each cell of the multi-image table with a graphical representation of the information. Each cell in an original multi-image table is respectively paired with a source data value of a source data item stored in memory. In a multi-image table, the entire table image cannot be accommodated at one time in the display area of a display device because of the size of the cell regions required to represent the character image information; a machine user must scroll or navigate through portions of the table in order to view all of the data. In response to an image display request signal, the data represented directly as character image information in each cell of all portions of the multi-image table is replaced by an indirect, graphical representation of that data that compactly represents the source data values thereof.

Abstract: An improvement to a spreadsheet application program executed in a processor-controlled machine displays a first spreadsheet image showing a plurality of cell regions each of which shows a direct, symbolic representation of a source data value of a source data item in an n-dimensional (nD) information data array with which the cell is respectively paired. In response to an image display request signal, a second spreadsheet image is displayed which shows, in each cell, a graphical display object representation of the respectively paired source data value in place of its direct representation. The source data values in the nD data array are thus graphically, or indirectly, represented in the cell regions in the second spreadsheet image, facilitating the visual observation, identification and inspection of patterns and trends in the data.

Abstract: A three dimensional document workspace for interacting with large numbers of document objects. A document object may be a document or a document collection. The document workspace is divided hierarchically in terms of interaction rates. A focus space is where direct interaction with a document or document collection occurs. An immediate memory space or desktop is for placing pages or books that are in use, but not currently being interacted with. A tertiary space or bookcase is where many books and pages that are not in use, but which it is desirable to have ready access to. Moving document objects in the document workspace is facilitated by touch-drop and flick gestures. The touch-drop gesture addresses the problem of obscuring distant (hence smaller) document objects by presenting a visual line indicating a destination for a moved document object. Flick gestures are used to quickly move document objects within the document workspace.

Abstract: A three dimensional document workspace for interacting with large numbers of document objects. A document object may be a document or a document collection. The document workspace is divided hierarchically in terms of interaction rates. A focus space is where direct interaction with a document or document collection occurs. An immediate memory space is for placing pages or books that are in use, but not currently being interacted with. A tertiary space is where many books and pages that are not in use, but which it is desirable to have ready access to. Moving document objects in the document workspace is facilitated by touch-drop and flick gestures. The touch-drop gesture addresses the problem of obscuring distant (hence smaller) document objects by presenting a visual line indicating a destination for a moved document object. Flick gestures are used to quickly move document objects within the document workspace.