1. A method for analyzing a document image, comprising: segmenting the document image to identify a set of image objects within the document image; processing the set to group image objects within the set into a plurality of subsets, the subsets including one or more image objects; linking reference image objects to corresponding subsets in the plurality of subsets; creating machine readable data structures pairing the reference image objects with linked metadata fields, whereby image objects in the corresponding subsets are linked to common metadata in the linked metadata fields; and presenting the reference image objects to a user, and accepting input from the user, to interactively populate the linked metadata fields with ground-truthed metadata, the metadata including searchable characteristics of the image objects in the corresponding subsets.