Method and System of Detecting Events in Image Collections

• US 20110099199A1
• Filed: 10/27/2009
• Published: 04/28/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 10/27/2009
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Inventors: Solem, Jan Erik, Stalenhoef, Thijs, Nyholm, Nikolai, Parker, Geoff
• Application Number:
  US12/606,221
• Publication Number:
  US 20110099199A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/770
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/51 Indexing; Data structures therefor; Storage structures
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/32128 attached to the image data, e.g. file header, transmitted message header, information on the same page or in the same computer file as the image for information embedded in the image H04N1/32144
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 2201/3205 of identification information, e.g. name or ID code H04N2201/3209 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 2201/3214 of a date
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 2201/3215 of a time or duration
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 2201/3252 Image capture parameters, e.g. resolution, illumination conditions, orientation of the image capture device H04N2201/3256 and subgroups take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 2201/3253 Position information, e.g. geographical position at time of capture, GPS data

Abstract

A method and system of combining recognition of objects, backgrounds, scenes and metadata in images with social graph data for automatically detecting events of interest.

Claims

1. A method for automatic grouping of photos, belonging to one or more users, comprising the steps of;

segmenting a collection of photos using any data source, or combination, of social graph, date, time, EXIF and object recognition,

further correlating these segments with other segments using any data source, or combination, of social graph, date, time, GPS, face recognition and object recognition,

providing meta-data to enable retrieval.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein said collection is a user'"'"'s photo album or parts thereof.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein said segments are correlated between users of social networks or photo sharing sites.

4. The method according to claim 1, wherein said meta-data is names or identities computed using face recognition.

5. The method according to claim 1, wherein said correlation of segments is performed using face recognition in combination with;

user interaction by any user, or,

pre-labeled faces by any user.

6. The method according to claim 1, wherein said correlation of segments is performed using face recognition on unnamed faces and segments grouped if there are sufficiently many face matches.

7. A computer program stored in a computer readable storage medium and executed in a computational unit for automatic grouping of photos according to claim 1.

8. A system for automatic grouping of photos comprising of a computer program according to claim 7.

9. A system according to claim 8 where the collections are photo albums.

10. A system according to claim 8 where the collections are created across social graphs.