Global Pattern Search at Scale

In recent years, data collection has far outpaced the tools for data analysis in the area of non-traditional GEOINT analysis. Traditional tools are designed to analyze small-scale numerical data, but there are few good interactive tools for processing large amounts of unstructured data such as raw text. In addition to the complexities of data processing, presenting the data in a way that is meaningful to the end user poses another challenge. In our work, we focused on analyzing a corpus of 35,000 news articles and creating an interactive geovisualization tool to reveal patterns to human analysts. Our comprehensive tool, Global Pattern Search at Scale (GPSS), addresses three major problems in data analysis: free text analysis, high volumes of data, and interactive visualization. GPSS uses an Accumulo database for high-volume data storage, and a matrix of word counts and event detection algorithms to process the free text. For visualization, the tool displays an interactive web application to the user, featuring a map overlaid with document clusters and events, search and filtering options, a timeline, and a word cloud. In addition, the GPSS tool can be easily adapted to process and understand other large free-text datasets.