Arranging images on pages of an album

• US 20060200758A1
• Filed: 03/01/2005
• Published: 09/07/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 03/01/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Inventors: Atkins, C. Brian
• Granted Patent: US 8,161,377 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/209
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 11/60 Editing figures and text; Combining figures or text

Abstract

Methods, machines, and machine-readable media for arranging images on pages of an album are described. In one aspect, an album has multiple potential states each corresponding to a respective arrangement of the images on the pages. In accordance with one method, the album is received in an initial state. A series of successive states from the initial state to an end state is determined. Each of the successive states is selected from candidate states in a respective neighborhood of a corresponding preceding one of the states in the series based on a heuristic evaluation of the candidate states.

Claims

1. A machine-implemented method of arranging images on pages of an album having multiple potential states each corresponding to a respective arrangement of the images on the pages, comprising:

(a) receiving the album in an initial state; and

(b) determining a series of successive states from the initial state to an end state, wherein each of the successive states is selected from candidate states in a respective neighborhood of a corresponding preceding one of the states in the series based on a heuristic evaluation of the candidate states.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein each of the states of the album corresponds to a respective set of layouts of respective subsets of the images on corresponding ones of the pages.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein (b) comprises determining the candidate states in the neighborhood of a current one of the states in the series.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the determining of the candidate states comprises changing the layout locations of different respective ones of the images in the arrangement corresponding to the current state to identify the candidate states in the neighborhood of the current state.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the changing comprises moving a selected one of the images from a layout location on a selected one of the pages in the current state arrangement to a different layout location on the selected page.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the moving comprises deleting the selected image from the selected page and reintroducing the selected image into the selected page based on an evaluation of multiple candidate layouts derived from a layout of the images on the selected page immediately after the deleting.

7. The method of claim 4, wherein the changing comprises moving a selected one of the images from a layout location on a selected one of the pages in the current state arrangement to a layout location on a different one of the pages.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the moving comprises deleting the selected image from the selected page and reintroducing the selected image into the different page based on an evaluation of multiple candidate layouts derived from a layout of the images on the different page.

9. The method of claim 4, wherein the changing comprises moving multiple ones of the images from respective layout locations on a selected one of the pages in the current state arrangement to different respective layout locations on the selected page.

10. The method of claim 4, wherein the changing comprises selecting a first image on a first one of the pages in the current state arrangement, selecting a second image on a second one of the pages in the current state arrangement, moving the first image to the second page, and moving the second image to the first page.

11. The method of claim 4, wherein layouts of the images on the pages of the album are represented by respective tree structures having leaf nodes corresponding to respective ones of the images and interior nodes corresponding to respective divisions of the corresponding pages, and the changing of the layout locations comprises changing nodes of the tree structures representing the layouts of the images with changed layout locations.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the determining comprises assigning scores to each of the states, and selecting candidate states in the corresponding neighborhoods assigned scores greater than the score assigned to the corresponding preceding states as the successive states in the series.

13. A machine-implemented method of arranging images on pages of an album, comprising:

(a) receiving an initial arrangement of the images on the pages of the album;

(b) determining different candidate arrangements of the images on the pages of the album, wherein each of the candidate arrangements corresponds to the initial arrangement with at least one of the images at a different respective location in the album;

(c) evaluating the candidate arrangements;

(d) selecting one of the candidate arrangements based on the evaluation; and

(e) iteratively repeating (b), (c) and (d) with the respective candidate arrangement selected in each iteration as the initial arrangement in each corresponding successive iteration.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the initial arrangement received in (b) comprises an initial set of layouts of respective subsets of the images on corresponding ones of the pages in accordance with an initial allocation of the images among the pages.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein determining at least one of the candidate arrangements comprises:

changing the initial allocation of the images among the pages; and

determining a set of layouts of respective subsets of the images on corresponding ones of the pages in accordance with the changed allocation.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein changing the initial allocation comprises moving one of the images from one of the pages to another one of the pages.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the pages are arranged in an ordered sequence, and further comprising prohibiting the moving of one of the images from a first one of the pages to a second one of the pages separated from the first one of the pages by more than a prescribed number of intervening pages in the sequence.

18. The method of claim 15, wherein changing the initial allocation comprises moving multiple images from respective ones of the pages to different respective ones of the pages.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein changing the initial allocation comprises trading one of the images on one of the pages with another one of the images on another one of the pages.

20. A machine for arranging images on pages of an album having multiple potential states each corresponding to a respective arrangement of the images on the pages, the machine comprising at least one data processing module configured to perform operations comprising:

(a) receiving the album in an initial state; and

(b) determining a series of successive states from the initial state to an end state, wherein each of the successive states is selected from candidate states in a respective neighborhood of a corresponding preceding one of the states in the series based on a heuristic evaluation of the candidate states.

21. A machine for arranging images on pages of an album, the machine comprising at least one data processing module configured to perform operations comprising:

(a) receiving an initial arrangement of the images on the pages of the album;

(b) determining different candidate arrangements of the images on the pages of the album, wherein each of the candidate arrangements corresponds to the initial arrangement with at least one of the images at a different respective location in the album;

(c) evaluating the candidate arrangements;

(d) selecting one of the candidate arrangements based on the evaluation; and

(e) iteratively repeating (b), (c) and (d) with the respective candidate arrangement selected in each iteration as the initial arrangement in each corresponding successive iteration.

22. A machine-readable medium storing machine-readable instructions for arranging images on pages of an album having multiple potential states each corresponding to a respective arrangement of the images on the pages, the machine-readable instructions causing a machine to perform operations comprising:

(a) receiving the album in an initial state; and

(b) determining a series of successive states from the initial state to an end state, wherein each of the successive states is selected from candidate states in a respective neighborhood of a corresponding preceding one of the states in the series based on a heuristic evaluation of the candidate states.

23. A machine-readable medium storing machine-readable instructions for arranging images on pages of an album, the machine-readable instructions causing a machine to perform operations comprising:

(a) receiving an initial arrangement of the images on the pages of the album;

(b) determining different candidate arrangements of the images on the pages of the album, wherein each of the candidate arrangements corresponds to the initial arrangement with at least one of the images at a different respective location in the album;

(c) evaluating the candidate arrangements;

(d) selecting one of the candidate arrangements based on the evaluation; and

(e) iteratively repeating (b), (c) and (d) with the respective candidate arrangement selected in each iteration as the initial arrangement in each corresponding successive iteration.