Album generating apparatus, album generating method and program

• US 20060221779A1
• Filed: 03/15/2006
• Published: 10/05/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 03/15/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Fujifilm Corporation (Fujifilm Holdings Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Fuji Photo Film Co Limited (Fujifilm Holdings Corporation)
• Inventors: Funakura, Hiroyuki, Isomura, Ayumu, Kaneko, Yasuhiko, Yoshihara, Hideaki, Matsushita, Masahiro, Kojima, Kenji, Tachikawa, Kimiko, Zetsu, Shinsuke, Nenoki, Yasuyo
• Granted Patent: US 8,086,612 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 369/30.10
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/51 Indexing; Data structures therefor; Storage structures
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/034 on discs G11B27/036, G11B27/038 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/3027 used signal is digitally coded
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/00132 in a digital photofinishing system, i.e. a system where digital photographic images undergo typical photofinishing processing, e.g. printing ordering
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/00196 Creation of a photo-montage, e.g. photoalbum H04N1/0019 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/772 the recording apparatus and the television camera being placed in the same enclosure
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/907 using static stores, e.g. storage tubes or semiconductor memories H04N5/91 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 9/8205 involving the multiplexing of an additional signal and the colour video signal

Abstract

There is provided an album generating apparatus for generating an album whose pages are adequately allocated in accordance to image capturing position and time. The album generating apparatus has an image storing section for storing images by correlating with the image capturing time and position of the images, a importance judging section for judging importance of the image capturing time and image capturing position in the plurality of images stored in the image storing section, an image capturing time sorting section for sorting the plurality of images stored in the image storing section per page in the album based on the image capturing time stored in the image storing section when the importance judging section judges that the importance of the image capturing time is greater than that of the image capturing position, an image capturing position sorting section for sorting the plurality of images stored in the image storing section per page of the album based on the image capturing position stored in the image storing section when the importance judging section judges that the importance of the image capturing position is greater than that of the image capturing time and a layout determining section for laying out the images sorted per page by the image capturing time sorting section or the image capturing position sorting section to each page of the album.

Claims

1. An album generating apparatus, comprising:

an image storing section for storing images by correlating with image capturing time and image capturing position of the images;

a importance judging section for judging importance of the image capturing time and image capturing position in the plurality of images stored in said image storing section;

an image capturing time sorting section for sorting the plurality of images stored in said image storing section per page in the album based on the image capturing time stored in said image storing section when the importance judging section judges that the importance of the image capturing time is greater than that of the image capturing position;

an image capturing position sorting section for sorting the plurality of images stored in said image storing section per page of the album based on the image capturing position stored in said image-storing section when said importance judging section judges that the importance of the image capturing position is greater than that of the image capturing time; and

a layout determining section for laying out the images sorted per page by said image capturing time sorting section or said image capturing position sorting section to each page of the album.

2. The album generating apparatus as set forth in claim 1, further comprising:

a distribution-of-image capturing position calculating section for calculating a distribution of image capturing positions of the plurality of images stored in said image storing section based on the image capturing position of the plurality of images stored in said image storing section;

wherein

said importance judging section judges that importance of the image capturing position is greater than the image capturing time when deviation of the distribution of image capturing positions calculated by said distribution-of-image capturing position calculating section is larger than a reference value set in advance.

3. The album generating apparatus as set forth in claim 2, further comprising:

a distribution-of-image capturing time calculating section for calculating a distribution of image capturing times of the plurality of images stored in said image storing section based on the image capturing time of the plurality of images stored in said image storing section;

wherein

said image capturing time sorting section sorts the plurality of images stored in said image storing section so that a number of images sorted into each page of the album is almost equalized based on the distribution of image capturing times calculated by said distribution-of-image capturing time calculating section.

4. The album generating apparatus as set forth in claim 2, wherein said image capturing position sorting section sorts the plurality of images stored in said image storing section so that a number of images sorted into each page of the album is almost equalized based on the distribution of image capturing positions calculated by said distribution-of-image capturing position calculating section.

5. The album generating apparatus as set forth in claim 1, further comprising:

a main image selecting section for selecting a main image that is to be a primary image in a predetermined page of the album out of the images sorted into said predetermined page by said image capturing time sorting section or image capturing position sorting section; and

a subsidiary image selecting section for selecting a subsidiary image that is to be an image subsidiary to the main image selected by said main image selecting section in said predetermined page in the album out of the images sorted into said predetermined page by said image capturing time sorting section or said image capturing position sorting section based on contents of the main image selected by said main image selecting section;

wherein

said layout determining section lays out the main image selected by said main image selecting section and the subsidiary image selected by said subsidiary image selecting section into said predetermined page of the album based on the contents of the main image selected by said main image selecting section and the subsidiary image selected by said subsidiary image selecting section.

6. An album generating method, comprising:

an image storing step of storing images by correlating with image capturing time and image capturing position of the images;

a importance judging step of judging importance of the image capturing time and image capturing position in the plurality of images stored in said image storing step;

an image capturing time sorting step of sorting the plurality of images stored in said image storing step per page in the album based on the image capturing time stored in said image storing step when it is judged in said importance judging step that the importance of the image capturing time is greater than that of the image capturing position;

an image capturing position sorting step of sorting the plurality of images stored in said image storing step per page of the album based on the image capturing position stored in said image storing step when it is judged in said importance judging step that the importance of the image capturing position is greater than that of the image capturing time; and

a layout determining step of laying out the images sorted per page in said image capturing time sorting step or said image capturing position sorting step to each page of the album.

7. A program for an album generating apparatus for generating an album, operating said album generating apparatus so as to function as:

an image storing section for storing images by correlating with image capturing time and image capturing position of the images;

a importance judging section for judging importance of the image capturing time and image capturing position in the plurality of images stored in said image storing section;

an image capturing time sorting section for sorting the plurality of images stored in said image storing section per page in the album based on the image capturing time stored in said image storing section when the importance judging section judges that the importance of the image capturing time is greater than that of the image capturing position;

an image capturing position sorting section for sorting the plurality of images stored in said image storing section per page of the album based on the image capturing position stored in said image storing section when said importance judging section judges that the importance of the image capturing position is greater than that of the image capturing time; and

a layout determining section for laying out the images sorted per page by said image capturing time sorting section or said image capturing position sorting section to each page of the album.