Sorting media objects by similarity

• US 20070271296A1
• Filed: 05/16/2006
• Published: 11/22/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 05/16/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.), Sony Electronics Inc. (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Corporation (Sony Group Corp.), Sony Electronics Inc. (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Plutowski, Mark, Purang, Khemdut
• Granted Patent: US 7,840,568 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/435 Filtering based on additional data, e.g. user or group profiles

Abstract

Weights are assigned for attributes of multimedia objects by sorting the attributes into preference levels, and computing a weight for each preference level. A similarity value of a multimedia object to an object of interest is computed based on the attribute weights.

Claims

1. A computerized method comprising:

sorting attributes of multimedia objects into preference levels according to an ordering of attributes;

computing a weight for each preference level;

computing an attribute weight as a function of a corresponding preference level weight and a maximum possible number of values for the attribute; and

computing a similarity value of multimedia object to an object of interest using the attribute weights.

2. The computerized method of claim 1, wherein the ordering represents a user'"'"'s preference of object attributes.

3. The computerized method of claim 1, further comprising:

ranking objects within the plurality of multimedia objects according to the computed similarity value of multimedia objects to the object of interest.

4. The computerized method of claim 3, further comprising:

outputting a sorted list of ranked multimedia objects.

5. The computerized method of claim 1, further comprising:

computing a similarity value between a multimedia object to be ranked and the object of interest according to a number of matches between values of attributes of the two objects.

6. The computerized method of claim 5, wherein the similarity value is further computed using the attribute weights of the attributes of the object to be ranked and a total number of values of the attributes of the object to be ranked.

7. A machine-readable medium having executable instructions to cause a processor to perform a method, the method comprising:

sorting attributes of multimedia objects into preference levels according to an ordering of attributes;

computing a weight for each preference level;

computing an attribute weight as a function of a corresponding preference level weight and a maximum possible number of values for the attribute; and

computing a similarity value of multimedia object to an object of interest using the attribute weights.

8. The machine-readable medium of claim 7, wherein the ordering represents a user'"'"'s preference of object attributes.

9. The machine-readable medium of claim 7, wherein the method further comprises:

ranking objects within the plurality of multimedia objects according to the computed similarity value of multimedia objects to the object of interest; and

outputting a sorted list of ranked multimedia objects.

10. The machine-readable medium of claim 7, wherein the method further comprises:

computing a similarity value between a multimedia object to be ranked and the object of interest according to a number of matches between values of attributes of the two objects.

12. A computer system comprising:

a processor coupled to a memory through a bus; and

a process executed from the memory by the processor to cause the processor to;

sort attributes of multimedia objects into preference levels according to an ordering of attributes;

compute a weight for each preference level;

compute an attribute weight as a function of a corresponding preference level weight and a maximum possible number of values for the attribute; and

compute a similarity value of multimedia object to an object of interest using the attribute weights.

11. The machine-readable medium of claim 12, wherein the similarity value is further computed using the attribute weights of the attributes of the object to be ranked and a total number of values of the attributes of the object to be ranked.

13. The computer system of claim 12, wherein the ordering represents a user'"'"'s preference of object attributes.

14. The computer system of claim 12, wherein the process further causes the processor to:

rank objects within the plurality of multimedia objects according to the computed similarity value of multimedia objects to the object of interest; and

output a sorted list of ranked multimedia objects.

15. The computer system of claim 12, wherein the process further causes the processor to:

compute a similarity value between a multimedia object to be ranked and the object of interest according to a number of matches between values of attributes of the two objects.

16. The computer system of claim 14, wherein the similarity value is further computed using the attribute weights of the attributes of the object to be ranked and a total number of values of the attributes of the object to be ranked.

17. An apparatus comprising:

means for sorting attributes of multimedia objects into preference levels according to an ordering of attributes;

means for computing a weight for each preference level;

means for computing an attribute weight as a function of a corresponding preference level weight and a maximum possible number of values for the attribute; and

means for computing a similarity value of multimedia object to an object of interest using the attribute weights.

18. The apparatus of claim 17, further comprising:

means for ranking objects within the plurality of multimedia objects according to the computed similarity value of multimedia objects to the object of interest; and

means for outputting a sorted list of ranked multimedia objects.

19. The apparatus of claim 17, wherein the ordering represents a user'"'"'s preference of object attributes.