Visualization for the document space

Abstract

Visualization for the document space is an important issue for future information retrieval systems. This article describes an information retrieval framework that promotes graphical displays which will make documents in the computer visualizable to the searcher. As examples of such graphical displays, two simulation results of using Kohonen' s feature map to generate map displays for information retrieval are presented and discussed. The map displays are a mapping from a high-dimensional document space to a two-dimensional space. They show document relationships by various visual cues such as dots, links, clusters and areas as well as their measurement and spatial arrangement. Using the map displays as an interface for document retrieval systems, we will provide the user with richer visual information to support browsing and searching.