Step 1
Ingest
Collect the full document corpus of a named institution: press releases, filings, published opinions, regulatory actions, and public communications. Every document is preserved in full.
The Method Stack
How Semantic Terrains are computed
The pipeline that transforms an institutional document corpus into a navigable Semantic Terrain.
Step 2
Embed
Normalize text and map every document into semantic space where meaning determines position. Documents about similar topics end up near each other. Distinct topics separate. This creates the raw material for the terrain.
Step 3
Topology
Compute the density landscape of the corpus. Identify peaks, passes, contours, corridors, and the skeleton that connects them. Detect communities at multiple scales — from broad institutional themes down to fine-grained topic neighborhoods. Filter out noise using persistence analysis so only the stable, significant features remain.
Step 4
Entities & Search
Extract entities from every document and locate them precisely within the terrain. Build vector search indexes so the full corpus is searchable by meaning, not just keywords. Generate entity dossiers showing co-occurrences, peak membership, and related documents.
Step 5
Delivery
Render the computed structure as a navigable Semantic Terrain with four exploration modes: Terrain Map, Network View, Article View, and Entity View. Search is scoped to whatever context you're exploring. The terrain updates on its defined cadence as the live corpus grows.
Instrumentation
Transparency baked in
Every terrain computation leaves a trail that both humans and automated agents can audit.
- →Versioned computation pipelines with full audit trails
- →LLM-ready Markdown mirrors for every research artifact
- →Source graph linking each terrain feature to the documents that define it
- →Health checks on embeddings and topological computation parameters
Learn more
Related resources
For definitions of terrain features like peaks, passes, contours, and entity mapping, see the Terminology page.
To see a live Semantic Terrain in action, explore the free DOJ Semantic Terrain.
For the full product overview, visit CAINC.