SYSTEM FOR CREATIVE IMAGE NAVIGATION AND EXPLORATION

• US 20110184950A1
• Filed: 01/26/2010
• Published: 07/28/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 01/26/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Xerox Corporation (Xerox Holdings Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Xerox Corporation (Xerox Holdings Corp.)
• Inventors: Wazaefi, Yanal, Fucs, Ana, SKAFF, Sandra, Bressan, Marco, Csurka, Gabriela, Colombino, Tommaso, Marchesotti, Luca
• Granted Patent: US 8,775,424 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/737
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/54 Browsing; Visualisation therefor
• 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: G06N 20/00 Machine learning
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/10 Terrestrial scenes scenes under surveillance with static cameras G06V20/52; scenes perceived from the exterior of a vehicle G06V20/56; scenes perceived from the interior of a vehicle G06V20/59
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/70 Labelling scene content, e.g. deriving syntactic or semantic representations

Abstract

A system and method for assisting a user in navigation of an image dataset are disclosed. The method includes receiving a user'"'"'s text query, retrieving images responsive to the query from an image dataset, providing for receiving the user'"'"'s selection of a first feature selected from a set of available first features via a graphical user interface, providing for receiving the user'"'"'s selection of a second feature selected from a set of available second features different from the first features via the graphical user interface, and displaying at least some of the retrieved images on the graphical user interface. The displayed images are arranged, e.g., grouped, according to levels and/or combinations of levels of the user-selected first and second features.

Claims

1. A method for assisting a user in navigation of an image dataset comprising:

receiving a user'"'"'s text query;

retrieving images responsive to the text query from an image dataset;

providing for receiving the user'"'"'s selection of a first feature selected from a set of available features;

providing for receiving the user'"'"'s selection of a second feature selected from the set of available features; and

displaying at least some of the retrieved images on the graphical user interface contemporaneously in an arrangement, whereby the arrangement of images reflects different levels of the first feature where only a first feature is selected and reflects different combinations of levels of the user-selected first and second features where first and second features are selected.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the displaying includes displaying at least some of the retrieved images on the graphical user interface contemporaneously in groups, whereby each displayed group of images corresponds to a different combination of levels of user-selected first and second features.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising displaying, on the graphical user interface, a first selector for selection of the first feature from a first set of features and a second selector for selecting the second feature from a second set of features.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the first features are aesthetic features and the second features are emotion features.

5. The method of claim 3, further comprising providing for a user to select a third feature from a third set of features, whereby the displayed images are grouped according to the selected at least two of the first, second, and third features.

6. The method of claim 2, wherein the displayed groups of images are ordered according to values of the selected features.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the displaying includes displaying groups of images in a two-dimensional array, wherein the first feature increases in level in a first dimension and the second feature increases in level in a second dimension.

8. The method of claim 2, wherein each group of images in the display differs in a combination of quantized values of the first and second features from each of the other groups.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein for each feature in the set of features, a plurality of quantization levels corresponding to different values of the feature is provided and each of the images in the dataset of images is associated with a respective one of the quantization levels for each of the features.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein for each feature in the set of features, there are at least three quantization levels.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the providing for receiving the user'"'"'s selections of the first and second features includes providing for receiving the user'"'"'s selections via the graphical user interface.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising retrieving at least one of nearest neighbors and near duplicate images for a user-selected image or user-selected group of images and displaying the at least one of nearest neighbors and near duplicate images on the graphical user interface.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the images comprise photographs.

14. The method of claim 1, further comprising automatically classifying at least a portion of the images in the dataset according to content, and wherein the retrieving of images responsive to a text query is based on the content classifications of the images.

15. The method of claim 1, further comprising displaying a document with a placeholder for accepting an image contemporaneously with a user-selected group of the images, whereby a user can select an image from the displayed group to be inserted in the placeholder.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein the displayed images are thumbnail images derived from corresponding images in the stored dataset.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein the displaying includes displaying an array of the retrieved images where the position of images in the array corresponds to the combination of feature levels.

18. A computer program product comprising a tangible medium encoding instructions, which when executed by a computer, perform the method of claim 1.

19. A navigation system comprising memory which stores instructions for performing the method of claim 1 and a processor in communication with the memory for executing the instructions.

20. An apparatus for navigation of an image dataset comprising:

a navigation system comprising instructions stored in memory for;

receiving a user'"'"'s text query;

retrieving images responsive to the query from an associated image dataset;

receiving the user'"'"'s selection of a first feature selected from a set of available features;

receiving the user'"'"'s selection of a second feature selected from the set of available features; and

displaying at least some of the retrieved images on an associated graphical user interface, whereby the displayed images are grouped according to levels of the selected first and second features; and

a processor in communication with the memory for executing the instructions.

21. The apparatus of claim 20, wherein the instructions further comprise instructions for displaying a first selector for selection of the first feature from a first set of features and a second selector for selecting the second feature from a second set of features.

22. The apparatus of claim 20, wherein the instructions for displaying include instructions for displaying groups of images in a two-dimensional array, wherein the first feature increases in value in a first dimension and the second feature increases in value in a second dimension, each group in the display differing in a combination of the first and second feature values from each of the other groups.

23. The apparatus of claim 20, wherein for each feature in the first and second sets of features, a plurality of quantization levels corresponding to different values of the feature is provided and wherein each of the images in the dataset of images is associated with a respective one of the quantization levels for each of the features.

24. A method of adding images to a document comprising:

storing a document with at least one placeholder for accepting an image;

receiving a user'"'"'s text query;

retrieving images responsive to the query from an image dataset, each of the images in the dataset being classified according to content and being associated with feature values for each of a set of features;

receiving the user'"'"'s selection of first and second features from the set of features;

partitioning the retrieved images into groups based on levels of the selected first and second features; and

displaying at least some of the retrieved images on the graphical user interface; and

providing for the user to select an image from the displayed groups of images for insertion in one of the placeholders.