Patent ID: 7617185

Claim:
A method of providing a visualization graph on a computer comprising: storing data corresponding to nodes in a memory device, wherein a semantic net includes the nodes and wherein the nodes are linked to each other by relations; generating a query; performing the query, by a computer processor, on the stored data and determining result nodes; determining a predetermined distance as a number of relations on a shortest path between a particular result node and a focus node, wherein the result nodes outside the predetermined distance are not displayed on a visualization graph unless they are of particular interest and wherein the predetermined distance is more than one relation; and displaying on a display device the visualization graph representing results of the query by displaying a subset of the result nodes, the visualization graph including: the focus node, defined by a user or the query; a first result node that is directly related to the focus node; a second result node that is indirectly related to the focus node and is within the predetermined distance from the focus node, and a third result node that is indirectly related to the focus node and is outside the predetermined distance from the focus node yet which is displayed because it is of particular interest, wherein the query uses context information to determine that the third result node is of the particular interest with respect to the focus node, and wherein the context information identifies the particular interest on the basis of a node type or relations linking the third result node to the focus node, wherein the results of the query comprise a fourth result node that is indirectly related to the focus node, and wherein the fourth result node is not displayed in the visualization graph because it is outside the predetermined distance and is not determined to be of particular interest.