Table-based user interface for retrieving and manipulating indices

Abstract

A user-interactive method for use in a processor controlled machine provides a user with the capability to retrieve and manipulate associations previously established among image segments in a single or in multiple data structures, where the image segments are stored as image data and not as recognized or interpreted information. The use of certain designated image segments, called key objects, for association with one or more other stored image segments in effect imposes a user-defined categorization structure on the image segments with which key objects are associated, producing groups of image segments associated with respective key object. The categorized information for a particular key object is retrievable and displayable with the key object image, also without performing a recognition operation, providing an indexing mechanism into the image data. Multiple groupings of categorized information may be presented in a tabular format, showing the relationship between key objects and image segments, and the tabular presentation may be used as a user interface for the post-creation manipulation and alteration of key object associations in order to further refine or extend the categorization structure. The invention is particularly useful in systems that provide for a stylus- or pen-based computing interface, since it provides a powerful mechanism for manipulating relationships that are semantically significant to a user between handwritten symbols represented as images without the need to perform a recognition operation on the images.