System and method for information retrieval from object collections with complex interrelationships

A data-driven information navigation system and method enable search and analysis of a set of objects or other materials by certain common attributes that characterize the objects, as well as by relationships among the objects. The invention includes several aspects of a data-driven information navigation system that employs this navigation mode. The navigation system of the present invention includes features of a knowledge base, a navigation model that defines and enables computation of a collection of navigation states, a process for computing navigation states that represent incremental refinement relative to a given navigation state, and methods of implementing the preceding features.