The result is an advanced visualization tool for information activities like exploring information spaces and judging relevance of information items in these spaces. It supports interactive clustering of the query result by manipulation of term positions. Furthermore, the user is provided with an interactive relevance feedback mechanism. He can express a higher/lower interest in a specific query and the related image cluster by in/decreasing the query symbol's attraction towards its images.
The relevance of the images (Key-frames) is coded to its position within the circle. The closer an image is positioned to the boarder of the circle, the more relevant it is in the whole query context; the closer it is positioned to a terms' position, the more relevant it is with regard to this term.
Possible end-users for the product are any users who want to visually judge and manipulate their search results, e.g. broadcasting archives, national and international archives, news agencies, advertising companies and marketing and PR departments of big enterprises. Further users can be national and international security and monitoring organization that deal with images as representatives of audiovisual material and preservation e.g. of crime, history or violation of human rights.
Main benefits of the product in respect to products that are on the market at present are:
- Exploring information spaces and judging relevance of information items in these spaces
- Interactive clustering of results sets
- Interactive relevance feedback mechanism
The technology could be used in systems that offer search by textual as well as visual metadata.