Holistic document search

Apparatus, comprising:

• a processor;
• computer memory holding computer program instructions executed by the processor for performing database maintenance, the computer program instructions comprising:
• program code, operative to parse a set of documents, respective members of the set of documents including a set of text elements and a set of visual elements, to produce a text content stream based on the set of text elements and a visual content stream based on the set of visual elements;
• program code, operative to build a set of respective visual element summarizations from the visual content stream, each visual summarization including a description of a respective visual element in a respective document in a textual form;
• program code, operative to create a holistic index by indexing the text content from the text content stream and the textual descriptions of the visual elements in a single search index, wherein the indexing is performed according to a set of semantic relationships between the text content from the text content stream and the textual descriptions of the visual elements;
• and
• program code, operative to display a user interface allowing a user to selectively retrieve text content and visual content from the set of documents.

A computer program product in a non-transitory computer readable medium for use in a data processing system, the computer program product holding computer program instructions executed by the data processing system for performing database maintenance, the computer program instructions comprising:

• program code, operative to parse a set of documents, respective members of the set of documents including a set of text elements and a set of visual elements, to produce a text content stream based on the set of text elements and a visual content stream based on the set of visual elements;
• program code, operative to build a set of respective visual element summarizations from the visual content stream, each visual summarization including a description of a respective visual element in a respective document in a textual form;
• program code, operative to create a holistic index by indexing the text content from the text content stream and the textual descriptions of the visual elements in a single search index, wherein the indexing is performed according to a set of semantic relationships between the text content from the text content stream and the textual descriptions of the visual elements;
• and
• program code, operative to display a user interface allowing a user to selectively retrieve text content and visual content from the set of documents.