Pixel Based Note Taking through Perceptual Structure Inference

• Main Author: Harris, Mitchell Kent
• Format: Others
• Published: BYU ScholarsArchive 2010
• Subjects: annotation; perception; HCI; Computer Sciences
• Online Access: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/2282; https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3281&context=etd

Knowledge workers need effective annotation tools to assimilate information. Unfortunately many digital annotators are limited in the range of document that they accept. Those that do accept many different documents do so by converting documents to images, thus losing any awareness about the original content of the document. We introduce a digital note taker that is both universal and content aware. By constructing a hierarchical context tree of document images, the structure of a document is inferred from the image. This hierarchical context tree is shown to be useful by demonstrating how it facilitates selection of document elements, reflowing documents to accommodate inserted notes, and expanding the context of links. PixelJot, and implementation of these ideas, demonstrates their feasibility.