Perceptual method for browsing, searching, querying and visualizing collections of digital images
First Claim
1. A computer implemented method for determining the semantic meaning of images, comprising:
- deriving a set of perceptual semantic categories for representing important semantic cues in the human perception of images, where each semantic category is modeled through a combination of perceptual features that define the semantics of that category and that discriminate that category from other categories; and
for each semantic category, forming a set of the perceptual features as a complete feature set CFS.
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Abstract
A method and system for determining the semantic meaning of images is disclosed. The method includes deriving a set of perceptual semantic categories for representing important semantic cues in the human perception of images, where each semantic category is modeled through a combination of perceptual features that define the semantics of that category and that discriminate that category from other categories and, for each semantic category, forming a set of the perceptual features as a complete feature set CFS. The perceptual features and their combinations are preferably derived through subjective experiments performed with human observers. The method includes extracting perceptual features from an input image and applying a perceptually-based metric to determine the semantic category for that image. The input image can be processed to compute the CFS, followed by comparing the input image to each semantic category through the perceptually-based metric that computes a similarity measure between the features used to describe the semantic category and the corresponding features extracted from the input image; followed by assigning the input image to the semantic category that corresponds to a highest value of the similarity measure. The distance measure may also be used for characterizing a relationship of a selected image to another image in the image database by applying the perceptually-based similarity metric.
125 Citations
38 Claims
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1. A computer implemented method for determining the semantic meaning of images, comprising:
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deriving a set of perceptual semantic categories for representing important semantic cues in the human perception of images, where each semantic category is modeled through a combination of perceptual features that define the semantics of that category and that discriminate that category from other categories; and
for each semantic category, forming a set of the perceptual features as a complete feature set CFS. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13)
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- 14. A data processing system comprising a data processor, a graphical user interface and a memory that stores a collection of digital images in an image database, said data processor operating in accordance with a stored program for determining the semantic meaning of images in accordance with a set of perceptual semantic categories that were previously derived from human observers and that represent important semantic cues in the human perception of images, where each semantic category is modeled through a combination of perceptual features that define the semantics of that category and that discriminate that category from other categories, where for each semantic category there exists a set of the perceptual features as a complete feature set CFS, said data processor extracting perceptual features from an input image and applying a perceptually-based metric to determine the semantic category for the input image.
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25. A computer program embodied on a computer readable media for directing a computer to execute a method for processing digitally represented images, comprising program instructions for processing a set of perceptual semantic categories for representing semantic cues related to the manner in which human observers perceive and organize images, the semantic categories being modeled using multidimensional scaling and hierarchical clustering techniques and comprising a combination of perceptual features that define the semantics of a particular category and that discriminate that category from other categories, where the perceptual features and their combinations are derived through subjective experiments performed with human observers;
- for each semantic category, program instructions for forming a set of the perceptual features as a complete feature set CFS and, responsive to an input image, program instructions for determining a CFS of the input image and for using the determined CFS to compare the input image to images stored in an image database.
- View Dependent Claims (26, 27, 28)
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29. A computer implemented method for processing digitally represented images, comprising:
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obtaining a set of perceptual semantic categories for representing semantic cues related to the manner in which human observers perceive and organize images, the semantic categories being modeled using multidimensional scaling and hierarchical clustering techniques and comprising a combination of perceptual features that define the semantics of a particular category and that discriminate that category from other categories, where the perceptual features and their combinations are derived through subjective experiments performed with human observers;
for each semantic category, forming a set of the perceptual features as a complete feature set CFS; and
for individual ones of images stored in an image database, determining a CFS of each image and classifying each image by using a similarity metric for assigning a semantic category to the image, where the similarity metric operates such that all of a subset of Required Features of the semantic category must be present in the image, and at least one of a subset of Frequently Occurring features of the semantic category must be present in the image. - View Dependent Claims (30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38)
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Specification