NAVIGATION WITH CONTEXTUAL COLOR, TEXTURE, AND STRUCTURE CUES

• US 20090281728A1
• Filed: 05/08/2008
• Published: 11/12/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 05/08/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Mishra, Pragyana K., Kolluru, Nagendra V.
• Granted Patent: US 8,046,167 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 701/210
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3644 Landmark guidance, e.g. using POIs or conspicuous other objects

Abstract

A method and a processing device may provide navigational information including non-photographic cues, such as, contextual color, texture, and structure cues, corresponding to physical entities visible to a party traveling along a determined route. In one embodiment, the non-photographic cues may be previously stored in a database. In another embodiment, non-photographic cues may be extracted from at least one provided image of a geographic area. In a third embodiment, a sequence of non-photographic cues may be automatically extracted from at least one image of a geographic area and, if the sequence of non-photographic cues was not previously saved, the sequence of non-photographic cues may be saved, along with related information, for later use when the sequence of non-photographic cues corresponds to a desired location. The provided navigational information may be presented in a number of ways including a simplified map, textual instructions, or generated speech.

Claims

1. A machine-implemented method for providing navigational instructions, the machine-implemented method comprising:

deriving a sequence of non-photographic cues with respect to physical entities along a route, the sequence of cues being in an order as would be encountered along the route when traveling from an origin to a destination; and

providing navigational instructions for traveling along the route from the origin to the destination, the navigational instructions including information from the sequence of non-photographic cues.

2. The machine-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the deriving of a sequence of non-photographic cues with respect to physical entities along a route further comprises:

referring to a database including cues regarding color and texture of physical entities within a geographic area,

determining which of the physical entities, described in the database, are ones of the physical entities that are observable by a party traveling along the route, and

deriving a sequence of the cues, with respect to the ones of the physical entities, to be included in the sequence of non-photographic cues.

3. The machine-implemented method of claim 2, wherein:

the cues of the database include cues with respect to the color, the texture, and structure of the physical entities within the geographic area, and

the deriving of the sequence of the cues, with respect to the ones of the physical entities, include the cues regarding the color, the texture and the structure of the physical entities.

4. The machine-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the providing of navigational instructions for traveling along the route from the origin to the destination, further comprise:

providing the navigational instructions as text or generated speech.

5. The machine-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the providing of navigational instructions for traveling along the route from the origin to the destination, further comprise:

providing a map having the sequence of non-photographic cues encoded into ones of the physical entities represented on the map, the non-photographic cues including cues regarding a plurality of visual attributes of the physical entities.

6. The machine-implemented method of claim 5, wherein:

the map comprises at least one drawing including streets along the route and the ones of the physical entities, and

the cues regarding the plurality of visual attributes of the physical entities include information with respect to color, texture, and structure.

7. The machine-implemented method of claim 1, wherein:

the provided navigational instructions include driving directions, and

the sequence of non-photographic cues include color, texture, and structure cues corresponding to the driving directions.

8. A processing device comprising:

at least one processor; and

a memory connected to the at least one processor, the memory comprising;

instructions for automatically extracting non-photographic cues from at least one image of a geographic area, the extracted non-photographic cues being representative of a plurality of visual attributes of physical entities, and

instructions for providing navigational information based, at least partly, on the extracted non-photographic cues.

9. The processing device of claim 8, wherein the instructions for automatically extracting non-photographic cues from at least one image of a geographic area further comprise:

instructions for segmenting the physical entities appearing in the at least one image based on at least one three dimensional model, including a representation of the geographic area, to produce segmentation information, and

instructions for deriving color information with respect to the physical entities appearing in the at least one image based on the produced segmentation information and the at least one image.

10. The processing device of claim 9, wherein the instructions for automatically extracting non-photographic cues from at least one image of a geographic area further comprise:

instructions for deriving texture information with respect to the physical entities appearing in the at least one image based, at least partly, on the segmentation information and the at least one image.

11. The processing device of claim 8, wherein:

the instructions for automatically extracting non-photographic cues from at least one image of a geographic area further comprise;

instructions for deriving segmentation information with respect to physical entities appearing in the at least one image, based, at least partly, on the at least one image and at least one three dimensional model of the geographic area,

instructions for deriving color information with respect to the physical entities appearing in the at least one image based, at least partly, on the segmentation information and the at least one image,

instruction for deriving structure information based, at least partly, on the at least one three dimensional model of the geographic area, and

instructions for producing color and structure cues based, at least partly, on the segmentation information, the color information, and the structure information, and

the instructions for providing navigational information based, at least partly, on the extracted cues further comprise;

instructions for using the produced color and structure cues to provide information about a location and to provide distance information.

12. The processing device of claim 8, wherein:

the instructions for automatically extracting non-photographic cues from at least one image of a geographic area further comprise;

instructions for deriving segmentation information with respect to physical entities appearing in the at least one image, based, at least partly, on the at least one image and at least one three dimensional model of the geographic area,

instructions for deriving color information with respect to the physical entities appearing in the at least one image based, at least partly, on the segmentation information and the at least one image,

instruction for deriving structure information based, at least partly, on the at least one three dimensional model of the geographic area,

instructions for deriving texture information based, at least partly, on the at least one image and the segmentation information, and

instructions for producing color, structure and texture cues based, at least partly, on the segmentation information, the color information, and the structure information,

the memory further comprising;

instructions for saving information with respect to a sequence of the color, structure and texture cues for a location, and

instructions for using the saved information at a later time, with respect to a sequence of the color, structure and texture cues for the location.

13. The processing device of claim 8, wherein:

the instructions for automatically extracting non-photographic cues from at least one image of a geographic area further comprise;

instructions for deriving segmentation information with respect to physical entities appearing in the at least one image, based, at least partly, on the at least one image and at least one three dimensional model of the geographic area,

instructions for deriving color information with respect to the physical entities appearing in the at least one image based, at least partly, on the segmentation information and the at least one image,

instruction for deriving structure information based, at least partly, on the at least one three dimensional model of the geographic area,

instructions for deriving texture information based, at least partly, on the at least one image and the segmentation information, and

instructions for producing color, structure and texture cues based, at least partly, on the segmentation information, the color information, and the structure information, and

the instructions for providing navigational information further comprise;

instructions for presenting a simplified drawing as a map, the map having the color, structure and texture cues encoded therein.

14. A tangible machine-readable medium having instructions recorded thereon for at least one processor, the instructions comprising:

instructions for forming a sequence of visual cues with respect to physical entities along a determined route; and

instructions for providing driving directions to a destination, the driving directions including a reference to the sequence of visual cues.

15. The tangible machine-readable medium of claim 14, wherein the instructions for providing driving directions to the destination further comprise:

instructions for providing a map having the sequence of visual cues encoded therein.

16. The tangible machine-readable medium of claim 14, wherein the instructions for providing driving directions to a destination further comprise:

instructions for producing a map having the sequence of visual cues encoded therein, and

instructions for adding pushpins or hotspots to the map.

17. The tangible machine-readable medium of claim 14, wherein the instructions further comprise:

instructions for extracting color and texture cues from a plurality of images of a geographic area based, at least partly, on projecting a mesh from at least one three-dimensional model onto the plurality of images.

18. The tangible machine-readable medium of claim 17 wherein the instructions for extracting color and texture cues for a plurality of images of a geographic area further comprise:

instructions for forming histograms of image pixels over image areas corresponding to building facades, and

instructions for determining a dominant color of the histograms of image pixels based on a medium value of hues within a dominant peak of the histogram.

19. The tangible machine-readable medium of claim 17, wherein the instructions for extracting color and texture cues for a plurality of images of a geographic area further comprise:

instructions for forming a plurality of segmented regions based on projecting meshes from at least one three-dimensional model onto the plurality of images,

instructions for determining texture descriptors based on a gradient of intensities of image pixels within the plurality of segmented regions, and

instructions for determining textures by comparing the texture descriptors to a predefined set of descriptors.

20. The tangible machine-readable medium of claim 17, wherein:

the instructions for extracting color and texture cues from a plurality of images of a geographic area further comprise instructions for extracting structure cues from a plurality of images of a geographic area, and

the instructions recorded on the tangible medium further comprise instructions for providing navigational information based, at least partly, on the extracted color cues, the extracted texture cues, and the extracted structure cues from the plurality of images of the geographic area.