Method and Apparatus for Automated Analysis and Identification of a Person in Image and Video Content

• US 20130039547A1
• Filed: 08/11/2011
• Published: 02/14/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 08/11/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hyundai Motor Company (Hyundai Motor Group), Kia Corp.
• Original Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Liu, Zhu, Basso, Andrea, Begeja, Lee, Gibbon, David C., Renger, Bernard S., Shahraray, Behzad, Zavesky, Eric
• Granted Patent: US 8,792,684 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/115
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/583 using metadata automatically derived from the content
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/5854 using shape and object relationship
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/5866 using information manually generated, e.g. tags, keywords, comments, manually generated location and time information
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/784 the detected or recognised objects being people
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2218/12 Classification; Matching
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/30 in albums, collections or shared content, e.g. social network photos or video
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/172 Classification, e.g. identification
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/179 metadata assisted face recognition

Abstract

A method, apparatus, and computer readable medium for identifying a person in an image includes an image analyzer. The image analyzer determines the content of an image such as a person, location, and object shown in the image. A person in the image may be identified based on the content and event data stored in a database. Event data includes information concerning events and related people, locations, and objects determined from other images and information. Identification metadata is generated and linked to each analyzed image and comprises information determined during image analysis. Tags for images are generated based on identification metadata. The event database can be queried to identify particular people, locations, objects, and events depending on a user'"'"'s request.

Claims

1. A method for image analysis comprising:

determining content of the image;

identifying a person in the image based on event data and the content; and

generating identification metadata in response to identifying the person in the image.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the identifying the person in the image is further based on existing metadata associated with the image.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the determining the content of the image comprises determining a location shown in the image.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the determining content in the image comprises preliminarily identifying the person in the image.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising transmitting a notification to a user associated with the person identified in the image.

6. The method of claim 1 further comprising linking the identification metadata associated with the image with the image.

7. The method of claim 1 further comprising generating a tag for the image based on the generated identification metadata.

8. An apparatus for image analysis comprising:

means for determining content of the image;

means for identifying a person in the image based on event data and the content; and

means for generating identification metadata in response to identifying the person in the image.

9. The apparatus of claim 8 wherein the identifying the person in the image is further based on existing metadata associated with the image.

10. The apparatus of claim 8 wherein the means determining the content of the image comprises means for determining a location shown in the image.

11. The apparatus of claim 8 wherein the means for determining content in the image comprises means for preliminarily identifying the person in the image.

12. The apparatus of claim 8 further comprising means for transmitting a notification to a user associated with the person identified in the image.

13. The apparatus of claim 8 further comprising means for linking the identification metadata associated with the image with the image.

14. The apparatus of claim 8 further comprising means for generating a tag for the image based on the generated identification metadata.

15. A computer-readable medium having instructions stored thereon, the instructions for image analysis, the instructions in response to execution by a computing device cause the computing device to perform operations comprising:

determining content of the image;

identifying a person in the image based on event data and the content; and

generating identification metadata in response to identifying the person in the image.

16. The computer-readable medium of claim 15 wherein the identifying the person in the image is further based on existing metadata associated with the image.

17. The computer-readable medium of claim 15 wherein the determining the content of the image comprises determining a location shown in the image.

18. The computer-readable medium of claim 15 wherein the determining content in the image comprises preliminarily identifying the person in the image.

19. The computer-readable medium of claim 15, the operations further comprising linking the identification metadata associated with the image with the image.

20. The computer-readable medium of claim 15, the operations further comprising generating a tag for the image based on the generated identification metadata.