Information management apparatus, information management method, and computer program product

• US 20070065045A1
• Filed: 09/13/2006
• Published: 03/22/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 09/16/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Ricoh Company Limited
• Original Assignee: Ricoh Company Limited
• Inventors: Iwasaki, Masajiro
• Granted Patent: US 7,844,139 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/305
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/583 using metadata automatically derived from the content
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 10/7515 Shifting the patterns to accommodate for positional errors

Abstract

A feature-amount extracting unit extracts a first feature amount of information to be registered, from the information. A searching unit searches for a second feature amount of information from a feature-amount storing unit. A similarity calculating unit calculates a similarity between the first feature amount and the second feature amount. A registering unit registers the first information in association with a similarity-information list in a similarity-information-list storing unit, which includes the second information corresponding to the second feature amount of which the calculated similarity is larger than a threshold, as similarity information.

Claims

1. An information management apparatus comprising:

a feature-amount storing unit to store information in association with a feature-amount representing contents of the information;

a similarity-information-list storing unit to store the information in association with a similarity-information list that includes at least one piece of similarity information corresponding to a feature-amount of which a similarity indicating a degree of being similar to the feature-amount of the information is larger than a predetermined threshold;

a feature-amount extracting unit to extract a first feature amount of first information that is target information to be registered, from the first information;

a searching unit to search for a second feature amount of second information from the feature-amount storing unit;

a similarity calculating unit to calculate a similarity between the first feature amount and the second feature amount; and

a registering unit to register the first information in association with the similarity-information list in the similarity-information-list storing unit, the similarity-information list including the second information corresponding to the second feature amount of which the calculated similarity is larger than the threshold, as the similarity information.

2. The information management apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the registering unit acquires the similarity-information list corresponding to the similarity information similar to the first information from the similarity-information-list storing unit, and updates the similarity-information-list storing unit by adding the first information to the acquired similarity-information list as the similarity information.

3. The information management apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the registering unit, when the first information is to be newly registered, registers the first information in association with the similarity-information list in the similarity-information-list storing unit, the similarity-information list including the second information corresponding to the second feature amount of which the calculated similarity is larger than the threshold, as the similarity information.

4. The information management apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the searching unit, when an instruction to search for the similarity information of arbitrary information is received from a user, acquires the similarity-information list corresponding to the arbitrary information from the similarity-information-list storing unit, and outputs the similarity information included in the acquired similarity-information list as a search result.

5. The information management apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a deleting unit, upon deleting registered information, to acquire the similarity-information list that includes information to be deleted, as the similarity information from the similarity-information-list storing unit, and to delete the information from the acquired the similarity-information list to update the similarity-information-list storing unit.

6. The information management apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising:

a temporary similarity-information-list storing unit to temporarily store information in association with the similarity-information list that includes at least one piece of similarity information corresponding to a feature amount of which the similarity is larger than the threshold; and

a temporarily registering unit, when there are a plurality of pieces of information to be registered, to execute a process of registering the information in association with the similarity-information-list in the temporary similarity-information-list storing unit, in a parallel manner, wherein

when amount of the information registered in the temporary similarity-information-list storing unit is equal to or more than a predetermined amount, the registering unit moves the information and the similarity-information list registered in the temporary similarity-information-list storing unit to the similarity-information-list storing unit.

7. The information management apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising:

a temporary feature-amount storing unit to temporarily store information in association with the feature-amount of the information;

a temporary registering unit, when there are a plurality of pieces of information to be registered, to execute a process of registering the information in association with the extracted feature amount in the temporary feature-amount storing unit, in a parallel manner, wherein

when amount of the information registered in the temporary feature-amount storing unit is equal to or more than a predetermined amount, the similarity calculating unit executes a process of calculating the similarity between the feature-amount of the information registered in the temporary feature-amount storing unit and the feature amount searched by the searching unit, in a parallel manner.

8. The information management apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising:

a metadata storing unit to store information in association with metadata indicating attribute of the information; and

a metadata-searching unit, when an instruction to search for information with the metadata as a search key from a user, to search for the information corresponding to the metadata designated as the search key from the metadata storing unit, using the metadata as a search key, wherein

the searching unit acquires the similarity-information list corresponding to the information searched by the metadata-searching unit from the similarity-information list storing unit, and outputs information that is more included in the similarity-information list prior to information that is less included in the similarity-information list, as a search result.

9. The information management apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising:

a temporary feature-amount storing to that temporarily store information in association with a feature-amount of the information; and

a temporary registering unit to temporarily register information to be registered in association with the extracted feature-amount in the temporary feature-amount storing unit, wherein

when amount of the information registered in the temporary registering unit is equal to or more than a predetermined amount, the similarity calculating unit executes a process of calculating the similarity between the feature amount of the information registered in the temporary feature-amount storing unit and the second feature amount, in a parallel manner.

10. The information management apparatus according to claim 9, wherein

when an instruction to search for the similarity information of arbitrary information is received from a user, the similarity calculating unit calculates the similarity between the feature-amount of the information registered in the temporary feature-amount storing unit and the feature amount of the arbitrary information, and

the searching unit acquires the information in association with the feature-amount of which the similarity is larger than the threshold from the temporary feature-amount storing unit as the similarity information, and outputs the acquired information as a search result, acquires the similarity-information list in association with the arbitrary information from the similarity-information-list storing unit, and outputs the similarity information included in the acquired similarity information list as the search result.

11. The information management apparatus according to claims 1, wherein

the information is image information, and

the feature-amount represents contents of the image information.

12. An information management method comprising:

extracting a first feature amount of first information that is target information to be registered, from the first information;

searching for a second feature amount of second information from a feature-amount storing unit that stores information in association with a feature-amount representing contents of the information;

calculating a similarity between the first feature amount and the second feature amount, the similarity indicating a degree of being similar to the feature-amount of the information; and

registering the first information in association with a similarity-information list in a similarity-information-list storing unit, the similarity-information list including the second information corresponding to the second feature amount of which the calculated similarity is larger than the threshold, as the similarity information.

13. The information management method according to claim 12, further comprising temporary registering including, when there is a plurality of pieces of information to be registered, executing a process of registering the information in association with the similarity-information-list in a temporary similarity-information-list storing unit that temporarily stores information in association with the similarity-information list that includes at least one piece of similarity information corresponding to a feature amount of which the similarity is larger than the threshold, in a parallel manner, wherein

when amount of the information registered in the temporary similarity-information-list storing unit is equal to or more than a predetermined amount, registering the first information includes moving the information and the similarity-information list registered in the temporary similarity-information-list storing unit to the similarity-information-list storing unit.

14. The information management method according to claim 12, further comprising temporarily registering including, when there are a plurality of pieces of information to be registered, executes a process of registering the information in association with the extracted feature amount in a temporary feature-amount storing unit that temporarily stores information in association with the feature-amount of the information, in a parallel manner, wherein

when amount of the information registered in the temporary feature-amount storing unit is equal to or more than a predetermined amount, calculating the similarity includes executing a process of calculating the similarity between the feature-amount of the information registered in the temporary feature-amount storing unit and the feature amount searched by the searching unit, in a parallel manner.

15. The information management method according to claim 12, further comprising metadata-searching including, when an instruction to search for information with the metadata as a search key from a user, searching for the information corresponding to the metadata designated as the search key from a metadata storing unit that stores information in association with metadata indicating attribute of the information, using the metadata as a search key, wherein

searching for the second feature amount includes

acquiring the similarity-information list corresponding to the information searched by the metadata-searching unit from the similarity-information list storing unit;

and

outputting information that is more included in the similarity-information list prior to information that is less included in the similarity-information list, as a search result.

16. The information management method according to claim 12, further comprising temporary registering information to be registered in association with the extracted feature-amount in a temporary feature-amount storing unit that temporarily stores information in association with a feature-amount of the information, wherein

when amount of the information registered in the temporary registering unit is equal to or more than a predetermined amount, calculating the similarity includes executing a process of calculating the similarity between the feature amount of the information registered in the temporary feature-amount storing unit and the second feature amount, in a parallel manner.

17. The information management method according to claim 16, wherein

when an instruction to search for the similarity information of arbitrary information is received from a user, the calculating includes calculating the similarity between the feature-amount of the information registered in the temporary feature-amount storing unit and the feature amount of the arbitrary information, and

searching for the second feature amount includes

acquiring the information in association with the feature-amount of which the similarity is larger than the threshold from the temporary feature-amount storing unit as the similarity information;

outputting the acquired information as a search result;

acquiring the similarity-information list in association with the arbitrary information from the similarity-information-list storing unit; and

outputting the similarity information included in the acquired similarity information list as the search result.

18. The information management method according to claim 12, wherein

the information is image information, and

the feature-amount represents contents of the image information.

19. A computer program product comprising a computer usable medium having computer readable program codes embodied in the medium that when executed causes a computer to execute a method comprising:

extracting a first feature amount of first information that is target information to be registered, from the first information;

searching for a second feature amount of second information from a feature-amount storing unit that stores information in association with a feature-amount representing contents of the information;

calculating a similarity between the first feature amount and the second feature amount, the similarity indicating a degree of being similar to the feature-amount of the information; and

registering the first information in association with a similarity-information list in a similarity-information-list storing unit, the similarity-information list including the second information corresponding to the second feature amount of which the calculated similarity is larger than the threshold, as the similarity information.