A full-text index creation, search, retrieval and display method

Claim 1

A method executed by a computer as part of a computer program for finding and displaying on a display a raster image based on a search string and for highlighting said search string within said displayed raster image, a plurality of pages of a plurality of documents being scanned by an optical character recognition system to create a raster image for each of said pages, said raster images being converted into ASCII text files by an optical character recognition algorithm, said raster images being stored in memory, said method comprising the steps of: a) creating a full-text index comprising a plurality of words, locations of each of said words within said raster images, and dimensions of a geometric figure surrounding each of said words; b) searching said full-text index for a raster image containing said search string; c) retrieving said raster image from said memory; d) displaying said raster image on said display; and e) highlighting said search string in said raster image based on said locations and said dimensions.

Claim 2

A method executed by a computer as part of a computer program for finding and displaying on a display a raster image based on a search string and for highlighting said search string within said displayed raster image, a plurality of pages of a plurality of documents being scanned by an optical character recognition system to create a raster image for each of said pages, said raster images being converted into ASCII text files by an optical character recognition algorithm, said raster images being stored in memory, said method comprising the steps of: a) creating a full-text index comprising a plurality of words, locations of each of said words within said raster images, and dimensions of a geometric figure surrounding each of said words; b) searching said full-text index for a raster image containing said search string; c) retrieving said raster image from said memory; d) displaying said raster image on said display; and e) highlighting said search string in said raster image based on said locations and said dimensions.

Claim 3

A method executed by a computer as part of a computer program for finding and displaying on a display a raster image based on a search string and for highlighting said search string within said displayed raster image, a plurality of pages of a plurality of documents being scanned by an optical character recognition system to create a raster image for each of said pages, said raster images being converted into ASCII text files by an optical character recognition algorithm, said raster images being stored in memory, said method comprising the steps of: a) creating a full-text index comprising a plurality of words, locations of blocks of said words within said raster images, and dimensions of a geometric figure surrounding each of said blocks; b) searching said full-text index for a raster image containing said search string; c) retrieving said raster image from said memory; d) displaying said raster image on said display; and e) highlighting a block containing said search string in said raster image based on said locations and said dimensions.

Claim 4

A method executed by a computer as part of a computer program for finding and displaying on a display a raster image based on a search string and for highlighting said search string within said displayed raster image, a plurality of pages of a plurality of documents being scanned by an optical character recognition system to create a raster image for each of said pages, said raster images being converted into ASCII text files by an optical character recognition algorithm, said raster images being stored in memory, said method comprising the steps of: a) creating a full-text index comprising a plurality of words, locations of blocks of said words within said raster images, and dimensions of a geometric figure surrounding each of said blocks; b) searching said full-text index for a raster image containing said search string; c) retrieving said raster image from said memory; d) displaying said raster image on said display; and e) highlighting a block containing said search string in said raster image based on said locations and said dimensions.

Claim 5

A method as recited in claims 1 and 2, wherein step (a) comprises the steps of: a1) determining said locations of blocks of said words in said raster images from said ASCII text files for each page of said documents; a2) determining said dimensions of a geometric figure for each of said blocks of said words from said ASCII text files; and a3) storing said words, said locations and said dimensions in said full-text index.

Claim 6

A method as recited in claims 1 and 2, wherein a document ID corresponding to one of said documents and a page number corresponding to one of said pages is associated with each of said raster images and wherein step (a) comprises the step of: a1) storing a document ID and a page number for each of said raster images in said memory and each of said words in said full text index.

Claim 7

A method as recited in claims 1 and 2, wherein step (b) comprises the steps of: b1) retrieving a document ID and a page number of said raster image from said full-text index based on said search string; and b2) retrieving from memory said raster image based on said document ID and said page number.

Claim 8

A method as recited in claims 1 and 2, wherein step (b) comprises the steps of: b1) searching said full-text index for a plurality of said raster images containing said search string; b2) displaying a list of document IDs and pages where said search string appears on said display; and b3) retrieving from memory said raster image based on a document ID and a page selected by a user viewing said display.

Claim 9

A method as recited in claims 1 and 2, wherein said geometric figure is a rectangle.

Claim 10

A method executed by a computer as part of a computer program for finding and displaying on a display a raster image based on a desired search string and for highlighting said search string within said displayed raster image, a plurality of pages of a plurality of documents being scanned by an optical recognition system to create a raster image corresponding to each of said pages, said raster images being converted into ASCII text files by an optical character recognition algorithm, said raster images being stored in memory, a document ID corresponding to one of said documents and a page number corresponding to one of said pages being associated with each of said raster images, said method comprising the steps of: a) determining locations of a plurality of words in said raster images from said ASCII text files for each page of said documents; b) determining bounding box information for each of said words from said ASCII text files, said bounding box information including dimensions of a geometric figure surrounding each of said words; c) creating a full-text index by storing each of said words and its associated location, together with said bounding box information, a document ID and a page number for each of said words; d) searching said full-text index for raster images which contain said search string; e) retrieving a document ID, a page number, together with said locations and bounding box information for each of said raster images found which contain said search string; f) displaying said retrieved document IDs on said display; g) retrieving a raster image from said memory which corresponds to a document ID and a page number selected by a user viewing said display; h) displaying said raster image on said display; and i) highlighting said search string in said displayed raster image based on said location and said bounding box information.

Claim 11

A method executed by a computer as part of a computer program for finding and displaying on a display a raster image based on a desired search string and for highlighting said search string within said displayed raster image, a plurality of pages of a plurality of documents being scanned by an optical recognition system to create a raster image corresponding to each of said pages, said raster images being converted into ASCII text files by an optical character recognition algorithm, said raster images being stored in memory, a document ID corresponding to one of said documents and a page number corresponding to one of said pages being associated with each of said raster images, said method comprising the steps of: a) determining locations of a plurality of words in said raster images from said ASCII text files for each page of said documents; b) determining bounding box information for each of said words from said ASCII text files, said bounding box information including dimensions of a geometric figure surrounding each of said words; c) creating a full-text index by storing each of said words and its associated location, together with said bounding box information, a document ID and a page number for each of said words; d) searching said full-text index for raster images which contain said search string; e) retrieving a document ID, a page number, together with said locations and bounding box information for each of said raster images found which contain said search string; f) displaying said retrieved document IDs on said display; g) retrieving a raster image from said memory which corresponds to a document ID and a page number selected by a user viewing said display; h) displaying said raster image on said display; and i) highlighting said search string in said displayed raster image based on said location and said bounding box information.