Patent ID: 8775428

Claim:
A computer-implemented method of dynamic indexing of spectral data of a spectral database tree having a root node, the method implemented on processor search manager apparatus comprising a processor and memory, the method comprising: storing spectral data in a database of said memory, the spectral data being represented by an attribute vector having a plurality of M dimensions, where M is at least three, the spectral data comprising one of electromagnetic, acoustic, optic, isotopic, mass spectra and thermal data; defining a root node of a spectral database tree and a similarity test for the root node responsive to a query to said processor search manager apparatus related to an object, the similarity test defining an indexing surface in a three dimensional sub-space for separating the spectral data into at least two clusters of spectral data; determining reference evidence data of a separated cluster of said spectral data responsive to said query comprising one of a location, a manufacturer and an event related to the query object, the query object being a target object; and displaying the target object at a location central to a display,the target object displayed as a symbol and linked by one of a line and a curved line to another object, one of the lines forming part of a pathway having a similarity value, a speculation level and a model-based rank, the rank being an ordinal value balancing the similarity value with the speculation level.