SELECTION OF MULTIPLE IMAGES

• US 20130239063A1
• Filed: 09/27/2012
• Published: 09/12/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 03/06/2012
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Inventors: Ubillos, Randy, Cherna, Timothy D., Sun, Zehang
• Application Number:
  US13/629,347
• Publication Number:
  US 20130239063A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/838
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/54 Browsing; Visualisation therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2203/04806 Zoom, i.e. interaction techniques or interactors for controlling the zooming operation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04817 using icons graphical or visual programming using iconic symbols G06F8/34
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0482 Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04842 Selection of displayed objects or displayed text elements G06F3/0482 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04845 for image manipulation, e.g. dragging, rotation, expansion or change of colour
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0485 Scrolling or panning
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04883 for inputting data by handwriting, e.g. gesture or text
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0242 Determining effectiveness of advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0251 Targeted advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 11/001 Texturing; Colouring; Generation of texture or colour inpainting G06T5/77
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/066 Format adaptation, e.g. format conversion or compression
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/224 providing notification on incoming messages, e.g. pushed notifications of received messages
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/52 specially adapted for the location of the user terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/55 Push-based network services
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/387 Composing, repositioning or otherwise geometrically modifying originals
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/4074 using histograms

Abstract

Some embodiments provide an image-viewing application. The image-viewing application displays a thumbnail display area that includes several thumbnails that each correspond to an image. With a set of at least one thumbnail selected, the application receives selection input over a particular unselected thumbnail in the thumbnail display area. When the selection input lasts less than a threshold duration, application selects only the particular thumbnail and displays the image corresponding to the particular thumbnail in an image display area. When the selection input lasts at least the threshold duration, the application adds the particular thumbnail to the set of selected thumbnails and displays the images corresponding to each of the selected thumbnails in the image display area.

Claims

1. A machine readable medium storing an image-viewing application for execution by at least one processing unit, the image-viewing application comprising sets of instructions for:

displaying, on a touch-sensitive display, a thumbnail display area comprising an ordered set of thumbnails, the thumbnails for selection in order to display corresponding images in an image display area;

through the touch-sensitive display, receiving (i) a first touch input over a first thumbnail in the set of thumbnails and a (ii) a second touch input over a second thumbnail in the set of thumbnails, wherein the first and second touch inputs at least partly coincide in time; and

selecting images corresponding to the first thumbnail, the second thumbnail, and each image between the first and second thumbnails in the ordered set.

2. The machine readable medium of claim 1, wherein the image-viewing application further comprises a set of instructions for displaying the selected images in the image display area.

3. The machine readable medium of claim 2, wherein the set of instructions for displaying the selected images in the image display area comprises a set of instructions for displaying each of the selected images with a same visual weighting.

4. The machine readable medium of claim 1, wherein the first and second touch inputs comprise tap inputs.

5. The machine readable medium of claim 1, wherein the first and second touch inputs comprise press and hold inputs.

6. A method for providing an image-viewing application, the method comprising:

providing a thumbnail display area for displaying a set of thumbnails that each corresponds to an image;

providing an image display area for displaying one or more images when thumbnails corresponding to the images are selected;

providing a set of modules for (i) selecting only a first image when touch input of less than a threshold duration is received over the thumbnail corresponding to the first image and (ii) selecting the first image while maintaining the selection of a previously-selected second image when touch input of at least the threshold duration is received over the thumbnail corresponding to the second image.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the touch input of less than the threshold duration is a tap input and the touch input of at least the threshold duration is a press and hold input.

8. The method of claim 7 further comprising providing a module for receiving gesture data from an operating system of a device on which the application operates, the gesture data indicating tap input data and press and hold input data.

9. The method of claim 6 further comprising providing a module for displaying selected images in the image display area with a same visual weighting.

10. A machine readable medium storing an image-viewing application for execution by at least one processing unit, the image-viewing application comprising sets of instructions for:

displaying a thumbnail display area comprising a plurality of thumbnails that each correspond to an image, wherein a set of at least one thumbnail is selected;

receiving selection input over a particular unselected thumbnail in the thumbnail display area;

when the selection input lasts less than a threshold duration, selecting only the particular thumbnail and displaying the image corresponding to the particular thumbnail in an image display area; and

when the selection input lasts at least the threshold duration, adding the particular thumbnail to the set of selected thumbnails and displaying the images corresponding to each of the selected thumbnails in the image display area.

11. The machine readable medium of claim 10, wherein the set of instructions for displaying the images in the image display area comprises a set of instructions for displaying each of the images with a same visual weighting.

12. The machine readable medium of claim 11, wherein the image-viewing application further comprises sets of instructions for:

receiving a second selection input over a particular previously selected thumbnail; and

displaying only the image that corresponds to the particular previously selected thumbnail in the image display area when the selection input lasts less than a threshold duration; and

removing the image that corresponds to the particular previously selected thumbnail from the image display area when the selection input lasts at least the threshold duration.

13. A machine readable medium storing an image-viewing application for execution by at least one processing unit, the image-viewing application comprising sets of instructions for:

displaying, on a touch-sensitive display, a thumbnail display area comprising an ordered set of thumbnails, the thumbnails for selection in order to display corresponding images from a set of image in an image display area;

receiving a particular touch selection of a thumbnail through the touch-sensitive display, the selected thumbnail corresponding to a first image;

for each particular other image in the set of images, comparing image properties of the first image with image properties of the particular other image in order to determine whether the particular other image is within a threshold similarity of the first image; and

automatically displaying, in an image display area, the first image along with each other image that is within the threshold similarity of the first image.

14. The machine readable medium of claim 13, wherein the image properties comprise color, shape, and texture.

15. The machine readable medium of claim 13, wherein the set of instructions for comparing image properties comprises a set of instructions for comparing a plurality of different histograms of the first image with a corresponding plurality of different histograms for the second image.

16. The machine readable medium of claim 15, wherein the plurality of different histograms for a particular image are computed upon import of the particular image into the image-viewing application.

17. The machine readable medium of claim 13, wherein the particular touch selection is a double tap gesture selection of the thumbnail.

18. A machine readable medium storing an image-viewing application for execution by at least one processing unit, the image-viewing application comprising sets of instructions for:

receiving an image having a particular aspect ratio;

computing, for each pixel in the image, a set of pixel properties that quantify the color, texture, and gradient of the image at the pixel;

for each of a set of several regions of the image, generating a histogram for each of the pixel properties, the histograms for use in comparing the image to other images, wherein the regions have a same aspect ratio as the image and at least one pixel in the image is part of more than one region.

19. The machine readable medium of claim 18, wherein each of the regions is one-fourth the size of the image.

20. The machine readable medium of claim 19, wherein the set of regions comprises nine different regions.

21. The machine readable medium of claim 18, wherein a first pixel in the image is part of multiple regions while a second pixel in the image is part of only one region.

22. The machine readable medium of claim 18, wherein the set of instructions for computing a set of pixel properties for a particular pixel comprises a set of instructions for converting color values of the particular pixel to a hue-saturation-value (HSV) color space.

23. The machine readable medium of claim 22, wherein the color histogram for each region comprises a first bin for a first portion of the HSV color space and a second bin for a second, larger portion of the HSV color space.

24. The machine readable medium of claim 23, wherein the first portion and second portion of the HSV color space represent equal human-perceptible differences.

25. The machine readable medium of claim 18, wherein the set of instructions for computing a set of pixel properties for a particular pixel comprises sets of instructions for:

computing an intensity value for the particular pixel;

computing a texture value for the particular pixel using the intensity value for the particular pixel and computed intensity values of a first set of surrounding pixels; and

computing a gradient value for the particular pixel using the intensity value for the particular pixel and computed intensity values of a second set of surrounding pixels.

26. The machine readable medium of claim 25, wherein the first set of surrounding pixels comprises all pixels in a 5×

5 window centered at the particular pixel, and the second set of surrounding pixels comprises the four pixels directly above, below, to the left, and to the right of the particular pixel.