Population and/or animation of spatial visualization(s)

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9009159-B2
Application number	US-201213355874-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jan 23, 2012
Priority date	Jan 23, 2012
Publication date	Apr 14, 2015
Grant date	Apr 14, 2015

Abstract

One or more techniques and/or systems are provided for populating and/or animating a spatial visualization, such as a map, a timeline, and/or other 2D and/or 3D visual representations of locations. The spatial visualization may be populated with events extracted from a data source (e.g., real-time events, news events, social network events, etc.), and may include relationships between events (e.g., based upon time, location, contextual similarity (e.g., social network check-in events at a restaurant), events referencing one another (e.g., an article describing a first event may comprise a hyperlink to an article describing a second event) etc.). Filter criteria (e.g., date, event type, location, etc.) may be applied to events and/or relationships when populating the spatial visualization. A sequence of events and corresponding relationships may be animated within the spatial visualization (e.g., as the events unfold over a (user) designated period of time).

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method for populating a spatial visualization, comprising: a processor and a memory for
extracting a set of events from a data source, an event comprising a location, an event time, and an event type;
creating a set of relationships associated with the set of events, a relationship comprising a first event, a second event, a relationship time, and a relationship type;
populating a spatial visualization using one or more events from the set of events and one or more relationships from the set of relationships;
receiving filter criteria comprising at least one of a date filter, a location filter, an event type filter, a relationship type filter, or a user preference filter;
creating a filtered set of events and a filtered set of relationships based upon the filter criteria; and
repopulating the spatial visualization using at least one of the filtered set of events or the filtered set of relationships to create a repopulated spatial visualization, the method implemented via a processing unit.

2. The method of claim 1 , the extracting a set of events comprising:
assigning a first event type to the first event based upon at least one of:
evaluating an event type field defined by the data source to identify the first event type; or
executing a classification technique upon data from the data source associated with the first event to identify the first event type.

3. The method of claim 1 , the creating a set of relationships, comprising:
creating the relationship based upon at least one of:
a temporal relationship between the first event and the second event, the temporal relationship identified based upon a first event time of the first event corresponding to a second event time of the second event;
a spatial relationship between the first event and the second event, the spatial relationship identified based upon a first location of the first event corresponding to a second location of the second event;
a referential relationship between the first event and the second event, the referential relationship identified based upon data associated with the first event comprising a reference to data associated with the second event; or
a contextual relationship between the first event and the second event, the contextual relationship identified based upon a first event type of the first event corresponding to a second event type of the second event.

4. The method of claim 1 , the creating a set of relationships, comprising:
defining a first relationship type for a first relationship between the first event and the second event based upon a first event type of the first event and a second event type of the second event.

5. The method of claim 1 , the creating a set of relationships, comprising:
defining a first relationship time for a first relationship between the first event and the second event based upon a first event time of the first event and a second event time of the second event.

6. The method of claim 1 , the creating a filtered set of events comprising:
applying the filter criteria to the set of events to create the filtered set of events.

7. The method of claim 1 , the creating a filtered set of relationships comprising:
applying the filter criteria to the set of relationships to create the filtered set of relationships.

8. The method of claim 1 , the set of relationships comprising at least one of:
a directed relationship comprising a third event having a directed relationship to a fourth event; or
an undirected relationship comprising a fifth event and a sixth event that have an undirected relationship.

9. The method of claim 1 , the populating a spatial visualization comprising:
representing the first event comprising a first event type within the spatial visualization using a first symbol; and
representing the second event comprising a second event type within the spatial visualization using a second symbol different than the first symbol.

10. The method of claim 1 , the populating a spatial visualization comprising:
representing an event using a symbol within the spatial visualization; the symbol sized according to an importance ranking determined based upon evaluating data associated with the event from the data source.

11. The method of claim 1 , comprising animating the spatial visualization.

12. The method of claim 1 , the data source comprising a real-time stream of data.

13. The method of claim 1 , comprising:
presenting the spatial visualization as an interactive user interface.

14. A system for populating a spatial visualization, comprising:
one or more processing units; and
memory comprising instructions that when executed by at least one of the one or more processing units perform operations, comprising:
extracting a set of events from a data source, an event comprising a location, an event time, and an event type;
creating a set of relationships associated with the set of events, a relationship comprising a first event, a second event, a relationship time, and a relationship type, the creating a set of relationships comprising creating the relationship based upon at least one of:
a temporal relationship between the first event and the second event, the temporal relationship identified based upon a first event time of the first event corresponding to a second event time of the second event;
a spatial relationship between the first event and the second event, the spatial relationship identified based upon a first location of the first event corresponding to a second location of the second event;
a referential relationship between the first event and the second event, the referential relationship identified based upon data associated with the first event comprising a reference to data associated with the second event; or
a contextual relationship between the first event and the second event, the contextual relationship identified based upon a first event type of the first event corresponding to a second event type of the second event; and

populating a spatial visualization using one or more events from the set of events and one or more relationships from the set of relationships.

15. The system of claim 14 , the operations comprising:
receiving filter criteria comprising at least one of a date filter, a location filter, an event type filter, or a user preference filter;
creating a filtered set of events and a filtered set of relationships based upon the filter criteria; and
repopulating the spatial visualization using at least one of the filtered set of events or the filtered set of relationships to create a repopulated spatial visualization.

16. The system of claim 14 , the operations comprising:
receiving filter criteria comprising at least one of a date filter, a location filter, an event type filter, or a user preference filter; and
applying the filter criteria to the set of events to determine the one or more events used to populate the spatial visualization.

17. The system of claim 14 , the operations comprising:
receiving filter criteria comprising at least one of a date filter, a location filter, an event type filter, or a user preference filter; and
applying the filter criteria to the set of relationships to determine the one or more relationships used to populate the spatial visualization.

18. A computer readable device, comprising instructions that when executed perform a method for populating a spatial visualization, the method comprising:
extracting a set of events from a data source, an event comprising a location, an event time, and an e

Assignees

• Bernhardt Daniel
• Kaisser Michael
• Gulli Antonino
• Microsoft Technology Licensing Llc

Inventors

• Bernhardt Daniel
• Kaisser Michael
• Gulli Antonino

Classifications

• G06F17/30864 Primary

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06F17/30867

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06F17/30598

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06F16/9038 Primary

  Presentation of query results · CPC title

• G06F16/9535

  Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation · CPC title