Information processing apparatus, information exchange system, information processing method, and information processing program

An information exchange system for exchanging information between one or a plurality of first information processing apparatuses storing a data group supplied from a device and a second information processing apparatus responding to a request from an application,

• wherein each of the one or plurality of first information processing apparatuses includes
• a processor;
• and
• a storage medium having computer program instructions stored thereon, when executed by the processor, perform to:
• extract a plurality of features from the data group supplied from the device and generate a group of feature vectors obtained by representing the plurality of features with vectors;
• perform clustering according to a distance between feature vectors on the group of feature vectors to generate a cluster tree obtained by hierarchizing cluster groups generated by the clustering according to a distance between the clusters;
• and
• generate a metadata tree, the metadata tree including, for each of the clusters, metadata obtained by annotating a synopsis obtained by summarizing information under each of the clusters, based on the cluster tree, and
• the second information processing configured to request any one of the one or plurality of first information processing apparatuses to search the metadata tree for metadata of a cluster suitable for a usage indicated by the application, and provide the metadata obtained through the search to the application.

An information processing method comprising:

• extracting a plurality of features from a data group supplied from a device and generating a group of feature vectors obtained by representing the plurality of features with vectors;
• classifying the generated group of feature vectors into a plurality of clusters according to a distance between feature vectors and generating a cluster tree obtained by hierarchizing the plurality of clusters according to a distance between the clusters;
• generating a metadata tree, the metadata tree including, for each of the clusters, metadata obtained by annotating a synopsis obtained by summarizing information under each of the clusters, based on the generated cluster tree;
• and
• searching the generated metadata tree for metadata of a cluster suitable for a usage indicated by an application and providing the metadata obtained through the search to the application.