JP2004227281A - Display method and device for relevancy network type data - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To selectively select and display a node highly interesting a user and nodes relevant to the node without losing the connection information of a whole network structure. <P>SOLUTION: The attributes of nodes themselves constituting a network structure and link attributes between those nodes are analyzed so that relevancy network type data can be reconstructed and displayed based on the intention of a user. At first, the data structure of the relevancy network type data is analyzed (S25), and reduction processing for replacing one node under consideration among a plurality of nodes and a node group linked to the node with one central node is executed to all the nodes (S26), and the execution result is displayed on the screen (S27). Thus, any node other than the central node is erased form a screen so that simple data expressions can be obtained without losing the connection information of the whole network structure. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2004,JPO&NCIPI

Description

[0001]
TECHNICAL FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for displaying large-scale relevance network-type data.
[0002]
[Prior art]
2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, information visualization technology for displaying complicated information in an easy-to-understand manner based on a user's intention has become important as a large amount and variety of information can be handled by a computer.
[0003]
For example, when displaying large-scale relevance network type data, it is not possible to display all the information to be viewed on the screen due to the limitation of the screen to be displayed or the limitation of human cognitive ability. For this reason, it is difficult to grasp the overall structure of the data or to search for the target from the displayed information. Therefore, various information visualization techniques for such structured information have been developed.
[0004]
The image processing apparatus disclosed in JP-A-2-226380 calculates the ratio of the size of the display area to the size of the entire data to be displayed, and performs the data scaling process at a magnification corresponding to the ratio. , So that the entire data is always displayed in the display area. However, this method has a problem that if the data to be displayed is significantly larger than the display area, excessive reduction processing is performed, and it becomes difficult to read the display data in detail.
[0005]
Further, the network structure display device disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 4-322370 defines a distance (the number of connections) by the number of links existing between a node of interest and another node, and a node having a large distance from the node of interest. By displaying as small as possible, the connection information between nodes in the entire network structure is displayed without losing it. However, this method has a problem that the attribute of the link between nodes is not considered at all, and that only one attention node can be designated.
[0006]
[Problems to be solved by the invention]
Therefore, there is a need for a method of adaptively selecting and displaying a node of interest (high interest) and a node related thereto without losing the connection information of the entire network structure.
[0007]
[Means for Solving the Problems]
The present invention analyzes the attributes of the nodes constituting the network structure and the link attributes between the nodes to reconstruct and display the relationship network type data based on the user's intention. A display method and apparatus are provided.
[0008]
One embodiment of the present invention is a method of displaying on a screen relevance network type data including a plurality of nodes and links indicating relevance between the nodes. The method includes analyzing a data structure of the association network type data, and replacing one of the plurality of nodes with a node group linked to the node when one of the plurality of nodes is focused on. Executing the reduction process for all the nodes, and displaying the executed result on the screen.
[0009]
According to this aspect, nodes other than the representative node are deleted from the screen, so that a simple data expression can be obtained without losing connection information of the entire network structure.
[0010]
There are two types of reduction processing: processing based on node attributes and processing based on link attributes. For reduction processing based on node attributes, the importance of each node is determined based on the analysis of the data structure, the node with high importance is set as the representative node, and the node with low importance is included in the representative node to be linked. included. The importance is preferably determined by the number of nodes linked to one node. As a result, nodes below the predetermined importance are deleted from the screen, and only important ones of the relevance network type data are displayed on the screen, so that the user can overlook important data. Less.
[0011]
The reduction processing based on the link attribute includes determining the degree of association between the nodes based on the analysis of the data structure, and replacing a node group having a high degree of association with one representative node. Further, it also includes determining the identity between the respective nodes based on the analysis of the data structure, and replacing a node group determined to be the same with one representative node. In this way, data complexity can be reduced.
[0012]
The information on the link between the representative node and the node group replaced by the representative node is stored even after the execution of the reduction process.
[0013]
The user can specify a node of interest from among a plurality of nodes before analyzing the data structure. At this time, the reduction processing is not performed on the node group in the range adjacent to the target node. This makes it possible to construct an information space composed of information with a high degree of user interest, so that it is easy to find a target node (information).
[0014]
After displaying the result of the reduction process on the screen, the user can designate a node of interest from among the displayed nodes. At this time, if the node of interest is a representative node, a node group in a range adjacent to the node of interest before executing the reduction processing is displayed on the screen using the information on the stored link. By doing so, the relevance network type data is reconstructed according to the user's intention / instruction, so that the user can move efficiently between nodes (information).
[0015]
Another embodiment of the present invention is an apparatus for displaying, on a screen of a user terminal connected to a network, relevance network type data composed of a plurality of nodes and links indicating relevance between the nodes, An analysis unit for analyzing a data structure of the association network type data, and a reduction unit that replaces a node and a node group linked to the node with one representative node when focusing on one of the plurality of nodes. A display control unit that executes a process on all nodes and displays a result of the execution on a screen of the user terminal.
[0016]
BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION
FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of a system that realizes an embodiment of the present invention. A system according to the present invention typically includes one or more user terminal devices and a server device connected to these user terminal devices via a network such as a LAN or the Internet.
[0017]
The input unit 11 of the user terminal device is, for example, a keyboard or a mouse. The user uses the input unit 11 to perform operations such as a display range of the relevance network type data, a target node to be described later, and a link attribute to be considered when displaying the data. The results of these operations are sent to the network structure display control unit 13 of the server device.
[0018]
Here, “relationship network type data” refers to a data structure composed of a plurality of nodes and links indicating relevance between the nodes, and includes a tree structure and a graph structure.
[0019]
The network structure analysis unit 14 of the server device analyzes the data structure of the relevance network type data stored in the data storage unit 15 attached to the server device, and determines the size of the entire data, the attribute of each node, , The number of linked nodes, the importance of each node, and the like are determined. This analysis result is sent to the network structure display control unit 13. The association network type data may be data downloaded from another server or the like connected to the server device via the network.
[0020]
The network structure display control unit 13 performs a later-described reduction process on the relevance network type data based on the analysis result by the network structure analysis unit 14 and various conditions specified by the user through the input unit 11, and A network structure expression to be displayed on the display unit 12 of the device is created and sent to the display unit 12.
[0021]
FIG. 2 is a flowchart of a network structure display process.
[0022]
When the user requests display of the relationship network type data (S21), the network structure display control unit 13 causes the display unit 12 to display the relationship network type data (S22). At this point, the relationship network type data that has not been subjected to the reduction processing is displayed as it is, or the result of the previous reduction processing is displayed. If the relevance network type data is large, only part of it is displayed. With respect to the displayed relevance network type data, the user uses the input unit 11 to perform operations such as specifying a node of interest and determining a link attribute to be considered when displaying. Here, the “node of interest” refers to a node from which the user wants to see the contents in detail from the entire relevance network type data. Two or more target nodes may or may not be specified.
[0023]
Subsequently, the network structure display control unit 13 determines whether or not the node of interest has been designated (S23). If the target node is specified, the specified (one or more) target nodes are stored (S24).
[0024]
Next, the network structure analysis unit 14 analyzes the data structure of the association network type data (S25). Based on the analysis result, the network display control unit 13 replaces a plurality of nodes with one node in the original relevance network type data in accordance with a predetermined rule (hereinafter referred to as “reduction processing”). Is executed (S26). An example of this rule is as follows.
1. The “representative node” and other general nodes are determined according to the node attributes and link attributes specified in advance.
2. Replace a general node with a representative node.
[0025]
An example of the replacement based on the node attribute is to determine the importance of each node, make a node with high importance a representative node, and include a node with low importance in an adjacent representative node. The importance is determined, for example, by counting the number of links of each node, and determining a node having a number of links equal to or greater than a preset threshold value as a node having a high importance. In another example, the importance of each node is determined based on the semantic importance of each node.
[0026]
By executing such replacement based on the node attributes, the nodes having the predetermined importance or less are deleted from the screen, and only the important one of the relevance network type data is displayed on the screen. Therefore, the user rarely overlooks important nodes (information). Also, the number of nodes displayed on the screen can be adjusted by raising and lowering the threshold of importance.
[0027]
An example of the replacement based on the link attribute is to replace a group of nodes having a high degree of association (subsumption relation) with one representative node. For example, as shown in FIG. 3, with respect to a part of the association network type data, each node stores information of node a: vehicle, node b: automobile, node c: tire, node d: engine, and node e: seat. If so, the nodes a and b having the information of the vehicle and the vehicle can be replaced with one representative node.
[0028]
Another example of the replacement by the link attribute is to determine the identity of two or more nodes connected by a link and, if they are the same node, replace those nodes with one representative node. In particular, if the relationship network type data is large, a link relationship may occur between the same nodes. In such a case, the replacement can reduce the complexity of the data.
[0029]
If the target node is specified, the reduction process is not performed on the node group in the range adjacent to the target node. Thereby, it is possible to grasp the detailed information of the node group in the range adjacent to the target node.
[0030]
Even after executing the above-described reduction processing, information on the link between the nodes is retained. It is also possible to use other node attributes or link attributes.
[0031]
Returning to FIG. 2, the relevance network type data subjected to the reduction processing is displayed on the display unit 12 of the user terminal (S27).
[0032]
Subsequently, the network structure display control unit 13 inquires of the user whether the user desires another expression of the relevance network type data (S28). If the user desires another expression, it is determined whether or not the designation of the node of interest has been changed or added (S29). If the designation of the node of interest has been changed or added, the reduction processing is re-executed for the relevance network type data accordingly (S26). That is, when the node of interest is changed, the above-described reduction processing is performed on the original association network type data. If the node of interest is added and this node of interest is a representative node, the information on the link between the held nodes is used to replace the node of interest before the reduction process is executed. Redisplay the linked nodes on the screen. This allows the user to easily display a node linked to the node of interest.
[0033]
Next, a part of actual data published in an open directory project (Open Directory Project, http://dmoz.org), which is hierarchical directory data on the web, which is widely used worldwide, is used. An embodiment in which the display method of the present invention is applied will be described. In the following embodiment, it is assumed that importance (the number of nodes linked to one node) “4” is specified as a node attribute and “identity-to” is specified as a link attribute by a user.
[0034]
FIG. 4 shows a part of data classified into the “Theme Parks” category in the Open Directory project. In the figure, white circles are nodes, and in this case, correspond to websites published by each theme park. Links provided between the nodes are indicated by solid lines. As can be seen from the figure, it is difficult to search for a target node or to instantly grasp a node related to the target node even with such a data size.
[0035]
FIG. 5 shows a result after the reduction processing according to the present invention is applied to the relationship network type data of FIG. 4 when the target node is not specified. Of the nodes in FIG. 4, the nodes in which the number of linked nodes is 4 or more are determined as “representative nodes”, which are indicated by double circles in FIG. 5. The other general nodes are included in the adjacent representative nodes and are not displayed on the screen. Also, since “identity” is specified as the link attribute, two identical nodes shown as “W park” in FIG. 4 are replaced with one node in FIG. 5 and displayed.
[0036]
In the past, the user had to grasp what node was at the link destination or which node was important by looking at each time. ADVANTAGE OF THE INVENTION According to this invention, it becomes possible to grasp | ascertain the importance etc. of a node, a node with a close relationship etc. intuitively, without losing the whole structure, without using a screen scroll etc.
[0037]
FIG. 6 shows a result after the reduction processing according to the present invention is applied to the relationship network type data of FIG. 4 when the target node is specified. In FIG. 6, the target node is indicated by a black circle. In this case, the node directly linked to the node of interest (the node surrounded by the dotted line in FIG. 4) is not replaced by the representative node, and is displayed as it is. As described above, the nodes adjacent to the node of interest specified by the user are displayed in detail, so that the node related to the node of interest can be grasped in detail among the large-scale relevance network type data, while the structure of the entire data Can also be seen at the same time.
[0038]
After the result as shown in FIG. 5 is obtained, the node of interest can be designated. In this case, the relevance network type data is reconstructed as described in the flowchart of FIG. 2, and as a result, a display as shown in FIG. 6 is obtained. Therefore, the user can move the node of interest while grasping the entire data.
[0039]
【The invention's effect】
According to the present invention, among a plurality of nodes of the association network type data, a reduction process of replacing a certain node and a group of nodes linked to this node with one representative node is executed for all nodes. Therefore, large-scale relevance network-type data can be easily displayed, and the handling of the data is improved.
[Brief description of the drawings]
FIG. 1 is a system configuration diagram of the present invention.
FIG. 2 is a flowchart illustrating a process for displaying relevance network type data according to the present invention.
FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating an example of replacement based on link attributes.
FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of association network type data.
FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a result of applying a reduction process to the data of FIG. 3;
FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating a result of applying a reduction process to the data of FIG. 3 when a target node is designated.
[Explanation of symbols]
11 input unit 12 display unit 13 network structure display control unit 14 network structure analysis unit 15 data storage unit

Claims (10)

A method of displaying, on a screen, relevance network type data composed of a plurality of nodes and links indicating relevance between the nodes,
Analyzing the data structure of the association network type data,
When attention is paid to one of the plurality of nodes, a reduction process of replacing the node and a node group linked to the node with one representative node is performed on all the nodes,
A method for displaying relevance network-type data, including displaying an execution result on a screen. The reduction processing includes determining the importance of each node based on the analysis of the data structure, setting a high importance node as a representative node, and including a low importance node in a linked representative node. Item 2. The method for displaying association network type data according to item 1. 3. The method according to claim 2, wherein the importance is determined by the number of nodes linked to one node. The association network according to claim 1, wherein the reduction processing includes determining a degree of association between the nodes based on the analysis of the data structure, and replacing a node group having a high degree of association with one representative node. How to display type data. 2. The relevancy according to claim 1, wherein the reduction processing includes determining identity between the nodes based on the analysis of the data structure, and replacing a node group determined to be identical with one representative node. 3. How to display network type data. The relationship network type according to claim 1, wherein information about a link between the representative node and a node group replaced by the representative node is stored after the reduction process is performed. 7. How data is displayed. The method further includes causing a node of interest to be specified from among a plurality of nodes before the analysis of the data structure.
The method according to claim 1, wherein the reduction processing is not performed on a node group in a range adjacent to the target node. After displaying the result of the reduction process on the screen, a designated node is designated from among the displayed nodes,
7. The method according to claim 6, further comprising: displaying, on a screen, a group of nodes in a range adjacent to the target node before performing the reduction process using the information on the link when the target node is a representative node. Display method of the relevance network type data described in. An apparatus for displaying, on a screen of a user terminal connected to a network, relevance network type data including a plurality of nodes and links indicating relevance between the nodes,
An analysis unit for analyzing a data structure of the association network type data,
When attention is paid to one of the plurality of nodes, a reduction process of replacing the node and a node group linked to the node with one representative node is executed for all nodes, and the result of the execution is A display control unit for displaying on the screen of the user terminal;
A display device for association network type data, comprising: A program for displaying, on a screen of a user terminal connected to a network, relevance network type data composed of a plurality of nodes and links indicating relevance between the nodes,
Analyzing the data structure of the association network type data,
When attention is paid to one of the plurality of nodes, a reduction process of replacing the node and a node group linked to the node with one representative node is performed on all the nodes,
A program configured to display an execution result on a screen of the user terminal.

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