Visual Search Engines
By Oleg on July 9, 2009I am always looking for innovative ways to explore information – product models, engineering information, visualization etc. If a picture is worth a thousand words, visualizing your search results can significantly improve your ability to find relevant information. One of the challenges in today’s information universe is to find relevant results. Instead of a long list of titles, URLs, Part and Document Numbers, visual search engines deliver rich results presentations, often visually connected to related search terms.
I’ve been looking around for some examples of visual search engines and I’d like to share these results with you. Even if most of the examples are not connected to what we expect to see in our PDM and PLM systems, I hope they will give you some ideas about how we can potentially improve our ability to search for data.
I conducted my own research and tried to use some of these visual search engines. Most of them explore web information, Wikipedia, Amazon books and some other information on the Web. My test case was to search for Product Lifecycle Management and see if I can better find results by using these engines. So, below you can see the results and short explanations related to visual search engines I tested.
KartOO is a Web-based visual search engine that can search the Web, images, videos and Wikipedia entries. Using Google and Yahoo! search engines, KartOO allows you to create a visual map where related results are linked between them.
Touch Graph Google Browser is a visual search engine that displays the connections between websites using Google technology and visualizing the results in an interactive and customizable map. You can arrange and filter results. On the picture below you can see “Product Lifecycle Management” result filtered for “Daily PLM Think Tank”
Grokker is Web search engine. Your results are displayed both in a standard outline and in an interactive dynamic map. Results can be sorted by date, source, domain and refined selecting (or excluding) specific related keywords. A Grokker enterprise version also exists.
Oskope is visual search engine for Web. You can visualize results in different styles like: grid, stack, pile, graph and list.
Quintura is Web search engine. Quintura allows you to present results in a customizable tag cloud, and a classic organic outline.
What is my conclusion?
I think Visual Search Engines provide a quite interesting concept to search for precise information. Sometimes you can see results, slices and dices you cannot see any other way. I’d be very interested in knowing what you think about visual search engine capabilities. Maybe you can share your experience in similar domains too?
Best,
Oleg
21 responses to “Visual Search Engines”
July 9th, 2009 at 5:29 pm
Published a new post: Visual Search Engines @http://zz.gd/2052c4
July 9th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
RT @3DPerspectives Published a new post: Visual Search Engines http://zz.gd/2052c4
July 9th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
RT @3DPerspectives Published a new post: Visual Search Engines http://zz.gd/2052c4
July 9th, 2009 at 7:55 pm
Thanks for this valuable information. Back in 1999 Kartoo.com use to have a Genius and a lamp. it’s General User Interface has changed a lot since. Thanks for sharring these sites / visual browsers.
July 10th, 2009 at 10:14 am
Jerome, you are welcome! You are right, some of these visual browsers is actually evolution of previous products in the field of knowledge, information and content management… Best, Oleg.
July 13th, 2009 at 2:46 pm
Oleg, thank you for including Quintura into your review of visual search engines.
Please, check Quintura Site Search, our hosted site search, analytics and image insertion online service for online information publishers.
We also develop custom search applications, like, visualization layers on top of existing search solutions. Please let me know if you are interested in this.
July 14th, 2009 at 5:08 pm
[...] Visual Search Engines [...]
July 20th, 2009 at 11:24 am
Yakov, thank you for reference and information. Can you point of few visualization customer searches to understand better what you are talking about? Best, Oleg
July 24th, 2009 at 10:41 am
[...] Les nouveautés de « 3D Perspectives » (cliquez sur le lien)By Oleg on July 9, 2009 [...]
July 28th, 2009 at 6:32 am
Visual Search Engines – @3DPerspectives reviews 5 – http://bit.ly/130Ivl – useful? just kind of cool to peruse? intriguing either way.
July 28th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
5 #visualsearch examples via http://bit.ly/xoiSB
July 28th, 2009 at 6:50 pm
Hello!
Maybe you are also interested in our project of our University in Hamburg:
http://mms.uni-hamburg.de/blogs/studyblog/
Here you can see the explanation in english: http://vimeo.com/3295835
July 28th, 2009 at 7:34 pm
Markus, Thank you for your link. Is there simple way to try it out? Regards, Oleg.
July 28th, 2009 at 7:57 pm
5 Beispiele Visueller Suchmaschinen. Interessante Konzepte. http://tr.im/urWC – Auch interessante für Alle vom #mms und #ePUSH
July 28th, 2009 at 7:57 pm
5 Beispiele Visueller Suchmaschinen. Interessante Konzepte. http://tr.im/urWC – Auch interessante für Alle vom #mms und #ePUSH
July 28th, 2009 at 7:57 pm
5 Beispiele Visueller Suchmaschinen. Interessante Konzepte. http://tr.im/urWC – Auch interessante für Alle vom #mms und #ePUSH
July 28th, 2009 at 9:00 pm
[...] Oleg from 3D Perspectives takes a test spin of five visual search engines: KartOO, TouchGraph Google Browser, Grokker, Oskope, and Quintura. Me, I’m not so much an early adopter with newfangled technologies; I like to wait until the dust settles, then try out the reigning champion. But I’d be willing to beta test and number of apps that would help me find those damn socks. [...]
July 29th, 2009 at 12:39 pm
Hello Oleg. You can download study.log for free. Either for Mac: http://mms.uni-hamburg.de/downloads/studylog/files/b054mac.zip
or for Windows: http://mms.uni-hamburg.de/downloads/studylog/files/b054win.zip
And there is also a Wordpress-Theme of study.log: http://mms.uni-hamburg.de/blogs/studylog_wp/
You will recognize that the two versions, the desktop tool and the WP-Theme, are both still in development, beta-versions.
I hope, you like it!
July 30th, 2009 at 10:37 am
Markus, thanks! I will certainly do so… Best, Oleg
August 28th, 2009 at 8:48 pm
[...] Oleg from 3D Perspectives takes a test spin of five visual search engines: KartOO, TouchGraph Google Browser, Grokker, Oskope, and Quintura. Me, I’m not so much an early adopter with newfangled technologies; I like to wait until the dust settles, then try out the reigning champion. But I’d be willing to beta test and number of apps that would help me find those damn socks. [...]
November 17th, 2009 at 3:07 am
Visual Search Engines: http://bit.ly/2bFqjv. SEO is a thing of the past.
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