Architecture

The architecture of Carrot² is based on a pipeline of components of three types: input components, filter components and visualization components. The task of input components is to provide search results for clustering based on a user query. Filter components transform the results in some way (e.g. apply clustering, case normalization), and the visualisation components render the transformed results for the user.

Carrot² processing pipeline

Ready-to-use input components are available in Carrot² for reading search results from:

• Yahoo! search engine (using Yahoo Web Seach API)
• Google search engine (using Google API)
• MSN search engine (using MSN Search Web Services)
• eTools Meta Search
• Alexa Web Search
• PubMed
• OpenSearch-compliant search engine
• Lucene index (requires access to the index files)
• SOLR service
• A local XML file

Five clustering algorithms are currently available in Carrot², please see a separate page for an overview. Finally, the Carrot² web-based clustering engine contains a fast DHTML/CSS/JavaScript component for cluster visualization.