Patent ID: 8533205

Claim:
A method of displaying data objects contained in a data collection, said method comprising: extracting metadata associated with the data objects; displaying one or more categorical selection elements; receiving a selection of at least one of the categorical selection elements; displaying a primary selection element associated with the selected at least one of the categorical selection elements; displaying a filter element to specify a filter for filtering the data objects contained in the data collection; receiving instructions to display a group of the data objects contained in the data collection, wherein the instructions are in the form of instructions to navigate to a selected group of the data objects associated with the primary selection element based on a user selection of the primary selection element or to specify the filter for filtering the data objects contained in the data collection based on a user selection of the filter element; upon receiving the user selection of the primary selection element: comparing the extracted metadata associated with the data objects of the selected group with the extracted metadata associated with other data objects contained in the data collection to determine a relative association between the data objects of the selected group and the data objects of another group, said comparing the extracted metadata comprising calculating strength of association scores of the data objects to determine one or more relationships between the data objects based on the compared extracted metadata, said calculating comprising receiving at least one of a priority order of data objects for analysis; and upon receiving the user selection of the filter element: determining a group of filtered data objects contained in the data collection specified by the user selection of the filter element; calculating a strength of association score associated with each of the filtered data objects in the determined group of data objects; and displaying data associated with the data objects for linking the data objects contained in the data collection based upon the calculated strength scores, said displaying including visually depicting for the link between groups of data objects a parameter independent of the basis for the link.