Print-n-Link: Weaving the Paper Web

Presentation given at DocEng 2006, ACM Symposium on Document Engineering, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

ABSTRACT: Citations form the basis for a web of scientific publications. Search engines, embedded hyperlinks and digital libraries all simplify the task of finding publications of interest on the web and navigating to cited publications or web sites. However the actual reading of publications often takes place on paper and frequently on the move. We present a system Print-n-Link that uses technologies for interactive paper to enhance the reading process by enabling users to access digital information and/or searches for cited documents from a printed version of a publication using a digital pen for interaction. A special virtual printer driver automatically generates links from paper to digital services during the printing process based on an analysis of PDF documents. Depending on the user setting and interaction gesture, the system may retrieve metadata about the citation and inform the user through an audio channel or directly display the cited document on the user’s screen.

Research paper: https://beatsigner.com/publications/print-n-link-weaving-the-paper-web.pdf

Transcript

1. October 2006 Print-n-Link: Weaving the Paper Web Moira C. Norrie, Beat Signer and Nadir Weibel Institute for Information Systems, ETH Zurich 8092 Zurich, Switzerland
2. October 2006 DocEng 2006, Beat Signer, signer@inf.ethz.ch 2 Scientific Web of Publications ▪ Citations build the basis for a scientific web of publications ▪ Use of web technologies ▪ convert citations and bibliography items into hyperlinks ▪ Paper documents still heavily used for reading
3. October 2006 DocEng 2006, Beat Signer, signer@inf.ethz.ch 3 Print-n-Link ▪ Extend the web to span paper and digital document spaces ▪ obtain the best of both worlds ▪ Easy navigation between paper and digital media ▪ Maintain affordances of paper (e.g. mobility) ▪ Handle arbitrary existing PDF documents
4. October 2006 DocEng 2006, Beat Signer, signer@inf.ethz.ch 4 Print-n-Link Video …
5. October 2006 DocEng 2006, Beat Signer, signer@inf.ethz.ch 5 Anoto Functionality ▪ Unique pattern space ▪ 60 million km2 ▪ Pen manufacturers ▪ Sony Ericson ▪ Logitech ▪ Nokia ▪ Maxell
6. October 2006 DocEng 2006, Beat Signer, signer@inf.ethz.ch 6 Print-n-Link Architecture Display Printer Driver Document DB iPAPER iDOC Publish Document Pattern Semantic Mapper Citation Analyser Citation Retrieval Document Lookup Citation DB Print-n-Link Engine iSERVER Active Content Link DB iPaper Plug-in Publish Positions and Active Content Definition Publish Citations Desktop Print (x,y) Coordinates Text-to- Speech Web Search Services iPaper Client Print-n-Link: Weaving the Paper Web Moira C. Norrie Dept. of Computer Science ETH Zurich 8092 Zurich, Switzerland norrie@inf.ethz.ch Beat Signer Dept. of Computer Science ETH Zurich 8092 Zurich, Switzerland signer@inf.ethz.ch Nadir Weibel Dept. of Computer Science ETH Zurich 8092 Zurich, Switzerland weibel@inf.ethz.ch ABSTRACT Citations form the basis for a web of scientific publications. Search engines, embedded hyperlinks and digital libraries all simplify the task of finding publications of interest on the web and navigating to cited publications or web sites. However the actual reading of publications often takes place on paper and frequently on the move. We present a system Print-n-Link that uses technologies for interactive paper to enhance the reading process by enabling users to access dig- ital information and/or searches for cited documents from a printed version of a publication using a digital pen for inter- action. A special virtual printer driver automatically gener- ates links from paper to digital services during the printing process based on an analysis of PDF documents. Depend- ing on the user setting and interaction gesture, the system may retrieve metadata about the citation and inform the user through an audio channel or directly display the cited document on the user’s screen. Categories and Subject Descriptors D.2.11 [ Software Engineering ]: Software Architectures; H.4.m [ Information Systems Applications ]: Miscella- neous; H.5.m [ Information Interfaces and Presenta- tion ]: Miscellaneous General Terms Design, Algorithms, Experimentation Keywords Interactive paper, document integration, digital library, ci- tation management 1. INTRODUCTION Nowadays we are all familiar with the notion of hyperlinks as a means of creating interconnected document spaces that can be easily searched and navigated with the help of search Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. To copy otherwise, to republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. DocEng’06, October 10–13, 2006, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Copyright 2006 ACM 1-59593-515-0/06/0010 ...$5.00. engines and web browsers. The ease with which we can not only find documents on the web, but also follow links to related documents is considered to be one of the main advantages of working with digital documents as opposed to paper equivalents. Y et many studies have shown that paper is still the preferred med ium when it comes to reading documents for reasons of comfort, mobility and also ease of annotation. In this paper, we show how emerging technologies for in- teractive paper enable a bridge to be built between paper and digital document spaces that allows users to travel back and forth between the two using the medium most appropri- ate to the current task and sit uation. Users can print doc- uments for reading and, by activating hyperlinks on paper with a digital pen, they can not only access digital informa- tion about related documents, but also initiate web searches to retrieve copies of those documents. The retrieved docu- mentsmay in turn be printed for reading with automatically generated embedded hyperlinks on the paper. Mobility is supported by providing disconnected userson the move with audio information about related documents and the option of adding them to a request list to be processed when recon- nected. As an application, we take the everyday academic task of reading scientific publications. Whether the reading activ- ity is for the purpose of knowledge discovery or reviewing, readers regularly look up citations to other publications by flicking to the reference list at the back of the paper. In some cases, a search for the cited publication may follow and, if found, often it is printed and added to a pile of documentsto be read. Citationsare the established meansof providing the links that form the basis of the scientific web of publications that spans the digital and paper worlds. Just as citations within digital documents can be used to automatically gen- erate hyperlinks to cited documents, we can automatically generate links within paper documents through an analysis of the PDF file when the document is printed. Section 2 presents a more detailed look at the activity of reading scientific publications and a discussion of related work. Section 3 describes the digital pen and paper tech- nologies and how these can be used to support interaction between paper and digital services. We then present the general functionality of our enhanced reading system in Sec- tion 4 and the overall architecture in Section 5. Details of the virtual printer component used to analyse PDF docu- ments for automatic link generation as well as printing are given in Section 6. Concluding remarks follow in Section 7. Interactive Paper Architecture Printing Semantic Mapper Document Retrieval
7. October 2006 DocEng 2006, Beat Signer, signer@inf.ethz.ch 7 Interactive Paper Architecture iPaper AC Encoded Position HTTP Request ID, Page, (x,y) Response iPaper Client and Output Device Interactive Document Link DB XIMA Print-n-Link: Weaving the Paper Web Moira C. Norrie Dept. of Computer Science ETH Zurich 8092 Zurich, Switzerland norrie@inf.ethz.ch Beat Signer Dept. of Computer Science ETH Zurich 8092 Zurich, Switzerland signer@inf.ethz.ch Nadir Weibel Dept. of Computer Science ETH Zurich 8092 Zurich, Switzerland weibel@inf.ethz.ch ABSTRACT Citations form the basis for a web of scientific publications. Search engines, embedded hyperlinks and digital libraries all simplify the task of finding publications of interest on the web and navigating to cited publications or web sites. However the actual reading of publications often takes place on paper and frequently on the move. We present a system Print-n-Link that uses technologies for interactive paper to enhance the reading process by enabling users to access dig- ital information and/or searches for cited documents from a printed version of a publication using a digital pen for inter- action. A special virtual printer driver automatically gener- ates links from paper to digital services during the printing process based on an analysis of PDF documents. Depend- ing on the user setting and interaction gesture, the system may retrieve metadata about the citation and inform the user through an audio channel or directly display the cited document on the user’s screen. Categories and Subject Descriptors D.2.11 [ Software Engineering ]: Software Architectures; H.4.m [ Information Systems Applications ]: Miscella- neous; H.5.m [ Information Interfaces and Presenta- tion ]: Miscellaneous General Terms Design, Algorithms, Experimentation Keywords Interactive paper, document integration, digital library, ci- tation management 1. INTRODUCTION Nowadays we are all familiar with the notion of hyperlinks as a means of creating interconnected document spaces that can be easily searched and navigated with the help of search Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. To copy otherwise, to republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. DocEng’06, October 10–13, 2006, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Copyright 2006 ACM 1-59593-515-0/06/0010 ...$5.00. engines and web browsers. The ease with which we can not only find documents on the web, but also follow links to related documents is considered to be one of the main advantages of working with digital documents as opposed to paper equivalents. Y et many studies have shown that paper is still the preferred med ium when it comes to reading documents for reasons of comfort, mobility and also ease of annotation. In this paper, we show how emerging technologies for in- teractive paper enable a bridge to be built between paper and digital document spaces that allows users to travel back and forth between the two using the medium most appropri- ate to the current task and sit uation. Users can print doc- uments for reading and, by activating hyperlinks on paper with a digital pen, they can not only access digital informa- tion about related documents, but also initiate web searches to retrieve copies of those documents. The retrieved docu- mentsmay in turn be printed for reading with automatically generated embedded hyperlinks on the paper. Mobility is supported by providing disconnected userson the move with audio information about related documents and the option of adding them to a request list to be processed when recon- nected. As an application, we take the everyday academic task of reading scientific publications. Whether the reading activ- ity is for the purpose of knowledge discovery or reviewing, readers regularly look up citations to other publications by flicking to the reference list at the back of the paper. In some cases, a search for the cited publication may follow and, if found, often it is printed and added to a pile of documentsto be read. Citationsare the established meansof providing the links that form the basis of the scientific web of publications that spans the digital and paper worlds. Just as citations within digital documents can be used to automatically gen- erate hyperlinks to cited documents, we can automatically generate links within paper documents through an analysis of the PDF file when the document is printed. Section 2 presents a more detailed look at the activity of reading scientific publications and a discussion of related work. Section 3 describes the digital pen and paper tech- nologies and how these can be used to support interaction between paper and digital services. We then present the general functionality of our enhanced reading system in Sec- tion 4 and the overall architecture in Section 5. Details of the virtual printer component used to analyse PDF docu- ments for automatic link generation as well as printing are given in Section 6. Concluding remarks follow in Section 7.
8. October 2006 DocEng 2006, Beat Signer, signer@inf.ethz.ch 8 Traditional Anoto Document Production PDF Document PostScript Printer Source Document 1 2 3 4 PS Document Anoto FDT Anoto License PDF Renderer
9. October 2006 DocEng 2006, Beat Signer, signer@inf.ethz.ch 9 iDoc Printer Driver ▪ Based on Anoto Paper SDK ▪ Pad and Print Generation Module (PPGM) ▪ One-step publishing without Acrobat plug-in ▪ regular printer driver ▪ Automatic allocation of Anoto pattern space ▪ multiple iPaper pages on a single Anoto license page ▪ Colour management (e.g. black reduction)
10. October 2006 DocEng 2006, Beat Signer, signer@inf.ethz.ch 10 Interactive Paper Authoring ▪ iServer/iPaper interfaces ▪ Java API ▪ XML-based specification ▪ Web Service interface ▪ Manual link authoring ▪ Content-driven publishing ▪ Automatic link authoring ▪ semantic mapper
11. October 2006 DocEng 2006, Beat Signer, signer@inf.ethz.ch 11 Semantic Mapper ▪ Automatic link authoring ▪ Calculate position of text elements within PDF ▪ based on iText (free Java-PDF library) ▪ Export link metadata to iServer ▪ Plug-in mechanism ▪ iPublish plug-in (EdFest) ▪ Citation Analyser plugin (Print-n-Link) ▪ …
12. October 2006 DocEng 2006, Beat Signer, signer@inf.ethz.ch 12 iServer Export <rectangle id="umics04_shape" resource="10639_page1"> <name>umics04 shape</name> <upperLeft><point><x>129</x><y>102</y></point></upperLeft> <size><width>4</width><height>4</height></size> </rectangle> <activeComponent id="umics04_ac"> <name>umics04 ac</name> <properties> <parameter><key>ac:oid</key><value>umics_04</value></parameter> </properties> <identifier>ch.ethz.printnlink.CITATION_REQUEST</identifier> </activeComponent> <link id="umics04_link" sources="umics04_shape" targets="umics04_ac"> <name>umics_04 link</name> </link>
13. October 2006 DocEng 2006, Beat Signer, signer@inf.ethz.ch Print-n-Link Printing Process 13
14. October 2006 DocEng 2006, Beat Signer, signer@inf.ethz.ch 14 Document Retrieval ▪ Check metadata for a URI pointing directly to the document ▪ Document lookup based on metadata ▪ digital library ▪ Google scholar ▪ CiteSeer ▪ …
15. October 2006 DocEng 2006, Beat Signer, signer@inf.ethz.ch 15 Print-n-Link Settings ▪ In the office ▪ desktop computer with monitor ▪ network access ▪ printer ▪ On the move ▪ minimal equipment ▪ no network access
16. October 2006 DocEng 2006, Beat Signer, signer@inf.ethz.ch 16 Conclusions ▪ Print-n-Link application ▪ Automatic augmentation of existing documents ▪ PDF document analysis ▪ citation retrieval service ▪ iDoc printer driver ▪ integrated Anoto document production ▪ enhanced handling of Anoto pattern space ▪ Other documents (e.g. printed web pages)