Generating Video Drive-By Data Corresponding to a Geographic Location and Related Three Dimensional Models

• US 20130188008A1
• Filed: 03/12/2013
• Published: 07/25/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 08/31/2004
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Visual Real Estate Incorporated (California Gold Corporation)
• Original Assignee: MV Patents LLC
• Inventors: Meadow, William D., Gordie, Randall A. Jr.
• Application Number:
  US13/795,959
• Publication Number:
  US 20130188008A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 348/36
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/29 Geographical information databases
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/50 of still image data
• 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
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/78 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/7867 using information manually generated, e.g. tags, keywords, comments, title and artist information, manually generated time, location and usage information, user ratings
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/787 using geographical or spatial information, e.g. location
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9537 Spatial or temporal dependent retrieval, e.g. spatiotemporal queries
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0484 for the control of specific functions or operations, e.g. selecting or manipulating an object, an image or a displayed text element, setting a parameter value or selecting a range
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/10 Text processing natural language analysis G06F40/20; semantic analysis G06F40/30; processing or translation of natural language G06F40/40
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0278 Product appraisal
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0623 Item investigation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0629 for generating comparisons
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/16 Real estate
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 11/60 Editing figures and text; Combining figures or text
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 17/05 Geographic models
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 17/20 Finite element generation, e.g. wire-frame surface description, tesselation
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 19/006 Mixed reality object pose determination, tracking or camera calibration for mixed reality G06T7/00
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 3/4038 Image mosaicing, e.g. composing plane images from plane sub-images
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/698 : for achieving an enlarged field of view, e.g. panoramic image capture
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/28 : Mobile studios
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/18 : Closed-circuit television [CCTV] systems, i.e. systems in which the video signal is not broadcast
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/181 : for receiving images from a plurality of remote sources

Abstract

Video drive-by data provides a street level view of a neighborhood surrounding a selected geographic location. A video and data server farm incorporates a video storage server that stores video image files containing video drive-by data corresponding to a geographic location, a database server that processes a data query received from a user over the Internet corresponding to a geographic location of interest, and an image processing server. In operation, the database server identifies video image files stored in the video storage server that correspond to the geographic location of interest contained in the data query and transfers the video image files over a pre-processing network to the image processing server. The image processing server converts the video drive-by data to post-processed video data corresponding to a desired image format and transfers the post-processed video data via a post-processing network to the Internet in response to the query.

Claims

1-21. -21. (canceled)

22. A system comprising:

an image storage server that stores image files derived from drive-by image data acquired at street level;

a database server that processes a query relating to a geographic location of interest received from a user over a communications network; and

an image processing server, wherein the database server identifies image files stored in the image storage server that correspond to the geographic location of interest contained in the query and transfers the image files to the image processing server, and wherein the image processing server converts the drive-by image data to post-processed image data in a predetermined image format and transfers the post-processed image data via the communications network to the user in response to the query.

23. The system of claim 22, further comprising:

a landing zone server that receives the drive-by image data from a portable memory device and permits the viewing of the drive-by image data prior to storage in the image storage server.

24. The system of claim 22, further comprising:

a map server that presents a static image of an overhead view of the geographic location of interest.

25. The system of claim 22, wherein the drive-by image data includes individual street-level images.

26. The system of claim 22, wherein the drive-by image data is formatted as video data.

27. The system of claim 22, further comprising:

a camera that generates video data at the geographic location of interest;

a processing unit that calculates a camera position of a designated individual frame of the video data by capturing position data points before and after the designated individual frame was acquired.

28. The system of claim 22, wherein the image processing server stitches together a plurality of frames of video data to form a composite horizontal image of a street view.

29. The system of claim 22, further comprising:

a camera array that generates street-level images of the geographic location of interest;

a positioning unit that produces positioning data corresponding to a location of the camera array; and

a processing unit that processes the street-level images and the positioning data to generate the drive-by image data, wherein the processing unit stores the drive-by image data on a portable memory device.

30. The system of claim 29, wherein the camera array includes a plurality of camera units that generate street-level images from which a 360-degree image can be stitched together.

31. The system of claim 29, wherein the processing unit generates the drive-by image data by linking latitude and longitude data to the street-level images.

32. The system of claim 22, further comprising:

a database of recognized text generated by OCR processing the drive-by image data.

33. The system of claim 22, wherein the system identifies a street-level image acquired with a camera orientation directed towards a centroid of a parcel having a street address selected by the user.

34. The system of claim 22, wherein the image processing server stitches together a plurality of individual street-level images to form a composite horizontal image of a street view.

35. The system of claim 34, wherein the image processing server superimposes county parcel data adjacent to a centroid of each parcel depicted in the composite horizontal image.

36. A method comprising:

storing image files in a image storage server that are derived from drive-by image data coded with latitude and longitude values corresponding to the geographic locations at which the drive-by image data was acquired;

receiving a query from a user over a communications network, wherein the query relates to a geographic location of interest;

identifying those image files that correspond to the geographic location of interest;

transmitting the identified image files to an image processing server;

converting the identified image files to a predetermined image format; and

transmitting the identified image files in the predetermined image format over the communications network to the user.

37. The method of claim 36, wherein the predetermined image format is a 360-degree image stitched together from a plurality of image files corresponding to the geographic location of interest.

38. The method of claim 36, further comprising:

acquiring digital images using a camera array;

generating the latitude and longitude values corresponding to the location of the camera array;

generating the drive-by image data by combining the digital images with the latitude and longitude values; and

storing the drive-by image data on a portable memory device.

39. The method of claim 36, further comprising:

receiving an uploaded digital image from the user;

comparing the uploaded digital image to digital images contained in the image files in the image storage server;

generating a list of possible matches between the uploaded digital image and the digital images contained in the image files.

40. The method of claim 36, wherein the query designates the geographic location of interest by a street address, wherein the predetermined image format is a composite horizontal image of the street address stitched together from a plurality of digital images in the image files corresponding to the street address.

41. The method of claim 40, further comprising:

displaying the composite horizontal image with county parcel data adjacent to a parcel corresponding to the street address.