InfoCrystal: A visual tool for information retrieval - Visualization, 1993. Visualization '93, Proceedings., IEEE Conference on

This paper introduces a novel representation, called the I n f o C r y s t a l T M , that can be used as a v isual i za t ion tool as well as a visual query lang u a g e to help users search for information. The lnfoCrysta1 visualizes all the possible relationships among N concepts. Users can assign relevance weights to the concepts and use thresholding to select relationships of interest. The lnfocrystal allows users to specify Boolean as well as v e c t o r s p a c e queries graphically. Arbitrarily complex queries can be created by using the 1nfoCrystals as building blocks and organizing them in a hierarchical structure. The 1nfoCrystal enables users to explore and filter information in a flexible, dynamic and interactive way.