Travel Route Planning Using Geo-Tagged Photographs

• US 20120084000A1
• Filed: 10/01/2010
• Published: 04/05/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 10/01/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Wang, Changhu, Yang, Jiang-Ming, Zhang, Lei, Lu, Xin
• Granted Patent: US 9,460,120 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 701/426
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/343 Calculating itineraries, i.e. routes leading from a starting point to a series of categorical destinations using a global route restraint, round trips, touristic trips travelling salesman problem G06Q10/04; optimisation of routes G06Q10/047
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3476 using point of interest [POI] information, e.g. a route passing visible POIs
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3484 Personalized, e.g. from learned user behaviour or user-defined profiles
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3647 Guidance involving output of stored or live camera images or video streams
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/4393 Multimedia presentations, e.g. slide shows, multimedia albums
• 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: G06F 16/587 using geographical or spatial information, e.g. location

Abstract

Systems, methods, and devices are described for providing customized trip plans. Based on information provided by a user, geo-tagged photographs, and/or travelogues, one or more travel destinations are identified. Travel paths typically taken by tourists within each of the travel destinations and stay times within those travel destinations may be determined. A customized trip plan including a travel route plan among the one or more travel destinations and recommended internal paths within each travel destination are provided to the user. A revised customized trip plan may also be provided in response to changes made to information associated with the user.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

a processor;

memory communicatively coupled to the processor, the memory storing;

a destination discovering component configured to identify a plurality of destinations based at least in part on a plurality of geo-tagged photographs;

a trip planning component configured to generate one or more travel route plans including one or more of the plurality of destinations based on associations of user preferences with information about the plurality of destinations; and

an internal path discovering component configured to determine one or more paths within the one or more destinations included in the travel route plan based on individual paths generated from the plurality of geo-tagged photographs.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the destination discovering component is further configured to utilize a plurality of travelogues to identify the plurality of destinations.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the destination discovering component is further configured to:

crawl a plurality of web albums to collect the plurality of geo-tagged photographs;

group the plurality of geo-tagged photographs, based on a geographic location specified by each of the plurality of geo-tagged photographs, into one or more clusters each corresponding to a different one of the plurality of destinations; and

use one or more travelogues and the geographic location of the plurality of geo-tagged photographs to name each of the destinations.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the trip planning component is further configured to incorporate the one or more paths within the one or more destinations into the travel route plan for output to a user.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or more paths within the one or more destinations are determined based on geo-tagged photographs previously taken at the plurality of destinations.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the internal path discovering component is further configured to:

identify geo-tagged photographs taken at one of the plurality of destinations that are associated with two or more different individuals;

determine an individual path taken by each individual within the destination based on the geo-tagged photographs associated with each individual; and

merge the individual paths associated with the two or more individuals to reconstruct a complete path within the destination.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the internal path discovering component is further configured to determine a stay time for each individual path and for the complete path, the stay time corresponding to an estimated total time spent within the destination.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or more travel route plans are generated based on a plurality of factors, the plurality of factors including at least one of travel duration, visiting time at each destination, destination preference, travel preferences, destination location, and a season of travel.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the trip planning component is further configured to enable a user to interactively change a particular travel route plan based on individual preferences.

10. A method comprising:

identifying, by a computing device, a plurality of destinations based on frequencies of appearance of the destinations in a plurality of geo-tagged photographs;

determining, by the computing device, information associated with the plurality of destinations based on features of the geo-tagged photographs or on travelogues associated with the plurality of destinations; and

generating, by the computing device, one or more travel route plans including one or more of the plurality of destinations based on associations of user preferences with the information describing the destinations.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising determining one or more paths within at least one of the plurality of destinations based on individual paths within the at least one destination previously associated with a plurality of individuals, the individual paths being determined based on geo-tagged photographs taken by each of the plurality of individuals while visiting the at least one destination.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

determining a time in which each of the geo-tagged photographs at the at least one destination was taken;

utilizing the time of the geo-tagged photographs associated with each of the plurality of individuals to generate the individual paths;

merging the individual paths to determine the one or more paths within the at least one destination; and

ranking the one or more paths according to a score assigned to each path and recommending at least one of the one or more paths.

13. The method of claim 10, wherein the plurality of destinations are identified and the one or more paths are determined based on travel-related information encoded in the plurality of geo-tagged photographs.

14. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

receiving an indication of a change to the user preferences; and

updating the one or more travel route plans based on the change.

15. The method of claim 10, wherein the user preferences relate to at least one of travel duration, visiting time at each destination, destination preference, travel preferences, travel location, and a season of travel.

16. One or more computer-readable media having computer-readable instructions that, when executed by a processor, perform operations comprising:

discovering, in a plurality of geo-tagged photographs associated with a destination, a plurality of individual paths taken by individuals at the destination; and

merging the individual paths associated with two or more of the individuals to reconstruct a complete path within the destination.

17. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 16, wherein the operations further comprise generating a travel route among a plurality of destinations that includes the destination and the complete path within the destination based on associations of user preferences with information about the plurality of destinations.

18. The computer-readable media of claim 16, wherein the geo-tagged photographs include a first set of geo-tagged photographs taken at the destination by a first individual and a second set of geo-tagged photographs taken at the destination by a second individual.

19. The computer-readable media of claim 18, wherein the operations further comprise:

identifying a time and a location for each of the first set of geo-tagged photographs and the second set of geo-tagged photographs to generate incomplete paths taken by the first individual and the second individual; and

merging the incomplete paths of the first individual and the second individual to reconstruct the complete path.

20. The computer-readable media of claim 17, wherein the travel route plan includes a visiting order of the plurality of destinations, a time arrangement for each destination, and the typical travel path within each destination.