IMAGE SEARCHING APPARATUS AND IMAGE SEARCHING METHOD

• US 20110202523A1
• Filed: 02/15/2011
• Published: 08/18/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 02/17/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha (Canon Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha (Canon Inc.)
• Inventors: Ota, Yuya
• Granted Patent: US 8,484,223 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/722
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/583 using metadata automatically derived from the content

Abstract

An image searching apparatus has a search target decision unit which decides a search target image out of images stored in an image storing unit; a search content selection unit which obtains a search condition to indicate search content specified by a user operation; a search execution unit which executes content search processing for the search target image using the search condition; and a search result display control unit which displays the search result. If a bracketed image group is included in the image storing unit, the search target decision unit sets a representative image selected from the image group to a search target image, and excludes images other than the representative image in the image group from search targets.

Claims

1. An image searching apparatus for searching content from a still image or a moving image, comprising:

an image storing unit which stores a plurality of images;

a search target decision unit which decides a search target image out of the plurality of images stored in the image storing unit;

a search content selection unit which obtains a search condition to indicate search content specified by a user operation;

a search execution unit which executes content search processing for the search target image decided by the search target decision unit using the search condition obtained by the search content selection unit; and

a search result display control unit which displays the search result of the search execution unit on a display unit,

wherein if an image group obtained by capturing a same object under a plurality of image capturing conditions is included in the images stored in the image storing unit, the search target decision unit sets a representative image selected from the image group to a search target image, and excludes images other than the representative image in the image group from search targets.

2. The image searching apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the search target decision unit selects, as the representative image, an image for which an image capturing condition matches with a predetermined condition, out of the image group.

3. The image searching apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the search target decision unit selects, as the representative image, an image having viewed history out of the image group.

4. The image searching apparatus according to claim 1, wherein if the representative image is included in the search result of the search execution unit, the search result display control unit displays images other than the representative image in the image group on the display unit, in addition to the representative image.

5. An image searching method for searching content from a still image or moving image,

wherein a computer executes:

a search target decision step of deciding a search target image out of the plurality of images stored in an image storing unit;

a search content selection step of obtaining a search condition to indicate search content specified by a user operation;

a search execution step of executing content search processing for the search target image decided in the search target decision step, using the search condition obtained in the search content selection step; and

a search result display control step of displaying the search result in the search execution step on a display unit, and

wherein if an image group obtained by capturing a same object under a plurality of image capturing conditions is included in the images stored in the image storing unit, a representative image selected from the image group is set to a search target image, and images other than the representative image in the image group is excluded from search targets in the search target decision step.