RECOMMENDING USER IMAGE TO SOCIAL NETWORK GROUPS

• US 20110188742A1
• Filed: 02/02/2010
• Published: 08/04/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 02/02/2010
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Eastman Kodak Company
• Original Assignee: Eastman Kodak Company
• Inventors: Joshi, Dhiraj, Luo, Jiebo, Yu, Jie
• Application Number:
  US12/698,490
• Publication Number:
  US 20110188742A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/159
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 18/23 Clustering techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 10/762 using clustering, e.g. of similar faces in social networks
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/30 in albums, collections or shared content, e.g. social network photos or video
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 2201/10 Recognition assisted with metadata

Abstract

A method of recommending social group(s) for sharing one or more user images, includes using a processor for acquiring the one or more user images and their associated metadata; acquiring one or more group images from the social group(s) and their associated metadata; computing visual features for the user images and the group images; and recommending social group(s) for the one of more user images using both the visual features and the metadata.

Claims

1. A method of recommending social group(s) for sharing one or more user images, comprising:

using a processor for

(a) acquiring the one or more user images and their associated metadata;

(b) acquiring one or more group images from the social group(s) and their associated metadata;

(c) computing visual features for the user images and the group images; and

(d) recommending social group(s) for the one of more user images using both the visual features and the metadata.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the metadata includes photographer, taken time, taken location, or user annotations.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the social groups include flower, animal, architecture, beach, sunset/sunrise, or portrait.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein step (d) further comprises:

(i) using a classifier to provide an initial recommendation of social groups for the user images based on the visual feature and metadata;

(ii) computing affinity between the user images using both the visual feature and metadata; and

(iii) using a propagation technique to refine the initial recommendation of social groups for the user images based on the affinity.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein step (ii) computing affinity between user images includes constructing an affinity matrix using visual features, metadata or the combination of visual features and metadata.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein step (iii) includes using a propagation technique refines the recommendations of one image by propagating recommendations from the other images weighted by the pair-wise affinity scores in the affinity matrix.

7. The method of claim 4, wherein step (d) further comprises:

(iv) selecting samples based on refined group recommendation and image affinity;

(v) presenting the samples to user and obtaining relevance feedback from user about the correct group recommendation for the samples;

(vi) using the user relevance feedback to update the initial group recommendation; and

(vii) repeating steps (d) (iii), (d) (iv) through (d) (vi) until the user is satisfied.

8. The method of claim 4, wherein step (d) further comprises:

(iv) selecting samples based on refined group recommendation and image affinity;

(v) presenting the samples to user and obtaining relevance feedback from user about the correct group recommendation for the samples;

(vi) using the user relevance feedback to retrain the classifier;

(vii) using the retrained classifier to provide an improved initial recommendation of social groups for the user images based on the visual feature and metadata; and

(viii) repeating steps (d) (iii), (d) (iv) through (d) (vii) until the user is satisfied.