SYSTEM AND METHOD OF ORGANIZING IMAGES

• US 20090132467A1
• Filed: 11/15/2007
• Published: 05/21/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 11/15/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: AT&T Labs Incorporated (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Labs Incorporated (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Vesonder, Gregory T., Kirk, Thomas, Killian, Thomas, Henderson, Donnie, Kormann, David, Di Fabbrizio, Giuseppe, Blewett, Charles, Bocchieri, Enrico
• Granted Patent: US 8,862,582 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/50 of still image data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/58 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/587 using geographical or spatial information, e.g. location
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques

Abstract

Disclosed are a system, method and computer-readable medium for organizing images. A method aspect relates to receiving an image into a device, receiving incidental information associated with the image, organizing the image and the incidental information into a data structure such as a sparse array, classifying the received image with an image classifier and storing the classified image in an image database, receiving a search query and responding to the search query by searching for and retrieving matching images in the image database based on a comparison of the image search query to the data structure.

Claims

1. A method of organizing images, the method comprising:

receiving an image into a device;

receiving incidental information associated with the image;

organizing the image and the incidental information into a data structure;

classifying the received image with an image classifier and storing the classified image in an image database;

receiving a second query; and

responding to the search query by searching for and returning matching images in the image database based on a comparison of the search query to the data structure.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the incidental information comprises at least one of environmental data, chronologically relevant audio input to the device, NTDOA data, location data, device orientation data, news, and data from at least one other neighbor device.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein environmental data comprises at least one of time, date, location information, color, object detection, temperature, received audio when the image was received by the device, or audio received prior to or after the image was received.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the data structure is an infinite sparse array.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

after storing the device of the image database, upon the retrieval of the image from the image database, receiving second incidental information associated with the image and storing the second incidental information into the data structure.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising during a later viewing of the stored image by a user, receiving second incidental information associated with the image and assigning a modified weight to at least a portion of the second incidental information, when the second incidental information is stored in the data structure.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the assigned weights to the second incidental information are based on at least one parameter that relates data associated with the incidental information to the second incidental information.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein a classifier that performs the classification is trained using personal data of a user who is associated with the device that receives the image.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the image is a video.

10. System for organizing images, the system comprising:

a module configured to receive an image into a device;

a module configured to receive incidental information associated with the image;

a module configured to organize the image and the incidental information into a data structure;

a module configured to classify the received image with an image classifier and store the classified image in a database;

a module configured to receive a second query; and

a module configured to respond to the second query by searching for and retrieve matching images in the image database based on a comparison of the search query in the data structure.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the incidental information comprises at least one of environmental data, chronologically relevant audio input to the NTDOA data, location data, device orientation data, news, and data from at least one neighbor device.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the environmental data comprises at least one of time, data, location, color, object detection, temperature, received audio when the image was received by the device, or audio received prior to or after the image was received.

13. The system of claim 10, further comprising a module configured, after storing the device of the image data and upon the retrieval of the image from the image database, to receive second incidental information associated with the image and storing the second incidental information into the data structure.

14. The system of claim 10, further comprising a module configured, during a later viewing of the stored image by a user, to receive second incidental information associated with the image and assigning a reduced weight to at least a portion of the second information wherein the second information is stored in the data structure.

15. The system of claim 10, wherein the data structure is an infinite sparse array.

16. A computer-readable medium storing instructions for controlling a computer device to organize the images, the instructions comprising:

receiving an image into a device;

receiving incidental information associated with the image;

organizing the image and the incidental information into a data structure;

classifying the received image with an image classifier and storing the classified image in a database;

receiving a second query; and

responding to the second query by searching for and retrieving matching images in the image database based on a comparison of the search query in the data structure.

17. The computer-readable medium of claim 16, wherein the incidental information comprises at least one of environmental data, chronologically relevant audio input to the NTDOA data, location data, device orientation data, news, and at least one neighbor device.

18. The computer-readable medium of claim 17, wherein the environmental data comprises at least one of time, data, location, color, object detection, temperature, received audio when the image was received by the device, or audio received prior to or after the image was received.

19. The computer-readable medium of claim 16, wherein the instructions further comprise, after storing the device of the image data and upon the retrieval of the image from the image database, receiving second incidental information associated with the image and storing the second incidental information into the data structure.

20. The computer-readable medium of claim 16, wherein the instructions further comprise:

during a later viewing of the stored image by a user, receiving second incidental information associated with the image and assigning a reduced weight to at least a portion of the second information wherein the second information is stored in the data structure.

21. The computer-readable medium of claim 20, wherein the assigned weights to the second incidental information are based at least on one parameter that relates data associated with the incidental information to the second incidental information.

22. The computer-readable medium of claim 16, wherein the data structure is an infinite sparse array.