Matching An Approximately Located Query Image Against A Reference Image Set
First Claim
1. An image processing method, comprising:
- receiving an image request from a user device, the image request including an image of interest and location metadata for the image of interest;
analyzing the location metadata to select one or more cells to evaluate against the image of interest, each cell having one or more geolocated images and index data associated therewith;
for each selected cell, comparing the image of interest against the index data of that cell;
identifying any matches from the geolocated images of the selected cells based on the compared index data; and
providing the matches.
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Abstract
Aspects of the invention pertain to matching a selected image/photograph against a database of reference images having location information. The image of interest may include some location information itself, such as latitude/longitude coordinates and orientation. However, the location information provided by a user'"'"'s device may be inaccurate or incomplete. The image of interest is provided to a front end server, which selects one or more cells to match the image against. Each cell may have multiple images and an index. One or more cell match servers compare the image against specific cells based on information provided by the front end server. An index storage server maintains index data for the cells and provides them to the cell match servers. If a match is found, the front end server identifies the correct location and orientation of the received image, and may correct errors in an estimated location of the user device.
93 Citations
18 Claims
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1. An image processing method, comprising:
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receiving an image request from a user device, the image request including an image of interest and location metadata for the image of interest; analyzing the location metadata to select one or more cells to evaluate against the image of interest, each cell having one or more geolocated images and index data associated therewith; for each selected cell, comparing the image of interest against the index data of that cell; identifying any matches from the geolocated images of the selected cells based on the compared index data; and providing the matches. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
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11. An image processing apparatus, comprising:
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a front end module configured to receive an image request from a user device, the image request including an image of interest and location metadata for the image of interest, the front end module being further configured to analyze the location metadata to select one or more cells to evaluate against the image of interest, each cell having one or more geolocated images and index data associated therewith; and a cell match module configured to compare the image of interest against the index data of the selected cells and to identify any matches from the geolocated images of the selected cells based on the compared index data. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18)
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Specification