METHOD, SYSTEM AND USER INTERFACE FOR AUTOMATICALLY CREATING AN ATMOSPHERE, PARTICULARLY A LIGHTING ATMOSPHERE, BASED ON A KEYWORD INPUT

• US 20110022396A1
• Filed: 04/21/2008
• Published: 01/27/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 04/24/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Signify Holding B.V. (Signify N.V.)
• Original Assignee: Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. (Koninklijke Philips N.V.)
• Inventors: Diederiks, Elmo Marcus Attila, Van De Sluis, Bartel Marinus
• Granted Patent: US 8,374,880 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/275
• CPC Class Codes: H05B 47/12 by detecting audible sound
• CPC Class Codes: Y02B 20/40 Control techniques providing energy savings, e.g. smart controller or presence detection

Abstract

The invention relates to the automatic creation of an atmosphere, particularly a lighting atmosphere, based on a keyword input such as a keyword typed or spoken by a user. A basic idea of the invention is to enable a user of an atmosphere creation system such as a lighting system to automatically create a specific atmosphere by simply using a keyword which is input to the system. The keyword, for example “eat”, “read”, “relax”, “sunny”, “cool”, “party”, “Christmas”, “beach”, may be spoken or typed by the user and may enable the user to find and explore numerous atmospheres in an interactive and playful way in embodiments of the invention. Finding atmosphere elements related to the keyword may be done in various ways according to embodiments of the invention. The invention allows also a non expert in designing or creating atmosphere scenes to control the creation of a desired atmosphere in an atmosphere creation system.

Claims

1. A system for automatically creating an atmosphere with an atmosphere creation system (10) comprising

keyword input receiving means (12) adapted to transform a received keyword into a digital signal (13) representing the received keyword,

a keyword interpreter (14) adapted to translate the digital signal (13) into a computer process able keyword representation (16),

an atmosphere elements finder (18) adapted to find atmosphere elements (20) related to the computer process able keyword representation (16) by automatically processing the computer-processable keyword representation (16), and

an atmosphere creation means controller (22) adapted to generate a control signal (24) for the atmosphere creation system (10) which adjusts settings of the atmosphere creation system (10) depending on the found atmosphere elements (20).

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the keyword input receiving means (12) comprise a keyboard and a microphone for the entry of a keyword and an analog-to-digital converter for generating the digital signal (13) from a microphone signal.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the keyword interpreter (14) is adapted to check and correct the spelling of a keyword inputted via the keyboard and represented by the digital signal (13) and comprises an automatic speech recognition module for translating a spoken keyword received via the microphone and represented by the digital signal (13) into the computer-processable keyword representation (16) of the digital signal (13).

4. The system of claim 1, further comprising keyword enriching means (26) adapted to generate one or more alternative keywords related to the computer-processable keyword representation (16).

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the keyword enriching means (26) are adapted to generate alternative keywords by using a database of synonyms, a language model or mind mapping technology, and/or a domain specific model that maps related atmosphere-related terms to each other.

6. The system of claim 4, wherein the keyword interpreter (14) is further adapted

to receive a feedback signal (28) from the atmosphere elements finder (18) containing information about found atmosphere elements (20, S10),

to determine whether a keyword enrichment is required based on the received feedback signal (28, S12),

to send the computer-processable keyword representation (16) to the keyword enriching means (26) for keyword enrichment (S14),

to receive one or more alternative keywords related to the computer process able keyword representation (16) from the keyword enriching means (26, S16), and

to send the one or more received alternative keywords to the atmosphere elements finder (18) to find atmosphere elements (20) related to the one or more received alternative keywords (S18).

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the atmosphere elements finder (18) is adapted to search through a knowledgebase using the computer-processable keyword representation (16), wherein the knowledge base is adapted to map keywords to certain atmosphere properties.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the atmosphere elements finder (18) is adapted to use semantic web technology enabling a web crawler to find relations between the computer-processable keyword representation (16) and certain atmosphere properties.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the atmosphere elements finder (18) is adapted to

find sounds, music and atmospheric sounds related to the computer-processable keyword representation (16) as certain atmosphere properties;

search for images using the computer-processable keyword representation (16) and

analyze found images in order to find properties mappable to certain atmosphere properties.

12. The system of claim 9, wherein the atmosphere elements finder (18) is adapted to analyze the found images and extract specific characteristics thereof by performing the following steps:

segmenting an image (100) in foreground (102) and background (104) by detecting which objects in an image are in front and what part of the image is part of the background (S20),

detecting where the horizon (106) is in the background of the image (100, S22) and dividing the background into an upper and a bottom area (108, 110) depending on the detected horizon (S24),

determining color characteristics in each area determined in the previous steps (S26), and

mapping the determined color characteristics of each area to certain atmosphere properties (S28).

10-11. -11. (canceled)

13. A control device for automatically creating an atmosphere, particularly comprising

receiver means (32) adapted to receive digital image data (34),

image characteristics extraction means (36) adapted to extract characteristics of digital image data (34) received from the receiver means (32), and

atmosphere control signal generation means (18, 20) adapted to generate signals (24) for automatically creating the atmosphere depending on the extracted characteristics.

14. The control device of claim 13, wherein the image characteristics extraction means (36) is adapted to perform the following steps:

segmenting an image (100) in foreground (102) and background (104) by detecting which objects in an image are in front and what part of the image is part of the background (S20),

detecting where the horizon (106) is in the background of the image (100, S22) and dividing the background into an upper and a bottom area (108, 110) depending on the detected horizon (S24),

determining color characteristics in each area determined in the previous steps (S26), and

mapping the determined color characteristics of each area to certain atmosphere properties (S28).

15. The control device of claim 13, wherein receiver means (32) comprise a color scanning device.

16. An image display device (38) comprising

image capturing means (40) adapted for capturing an image, which is displayed by the display device, upon receiving an image capturing signal (42),

receiver means (44) adapted for receiving the image capturing signal, and

sender means (46) adapted for sending a captured image as digital image data (34) to a control device of claim 13.

17-21. -21. (canceled)

22. A method for automatically creating an atmosphere with an atmosphere creation system (10) comprising

transforming a received keyword into a digital signal (13) representing the received keyword,

translating the digital signal (13) into a computer process able keyword representation (16),

finding atmosphere elements (20) related to the computer process able keyword representation (16) by automatically processing the computer process able keyword representation (16), and

generating a control signal (24) for the atmosphere creation system (10) which adjusts settings of the atmosphere creation system (10) depending on the found atmosphere elements (20).

23. A computer program enabled to carry out a method of claim 22 when executed by a computer.

24. A record carrier storing a computer program according to claim 23.