Linearized search of visual media

A process displays a concatenated array of slit-compressed images corresponding to an ordered sequence of images. The slit-compressed images are concatenated along a single dimension according to the ordered sequence of images. Each slit-compressed image has an associated query that has search terms based on the respective image. The process displays a moveable slider that moves along the single dimension and identifies a current location within the array, and displays a respective thumbnail image corresponding to the current location. The process receives user input to move the moveable slider along the single dimension to a new location. The process displays a thumbnail representation of the image corresponding to the new location and executes the query corresponding to the current image to retrieve documents from a document repository related to the current image. The process then displays the retrieved documents for user selection.