METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PROVIDING IMAGE DATA OF PROPERTY

• US 20140211015A1
• Filed: 04/02/2014
• Published: 07/31/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 08/31/2004
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Visual Real Estate Incorporated (California Gold Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Visual Real Estate Incorporated (California Gold Corporation)
• Inventors: Meadow, William D., Gordie, Randall A. Jr.
• Application Number:
  US14/243,712
• Publication Number:
  US 20140211015A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 348/148
• 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. A method of providing images of property parcels, the method comprising:

receiving a query over a communications network into a computer server, said query indicating a geographic location of interest;

associating a property parcel with said geographic location of interest;

accessing image data captured at street level with an image capture device mounted on a vehicle travelling near the geographic location of interest;

identifying select image data captured with the image capture device wherein a field of view of the image capture device is oriented in a direction towards an identified centroid of the property parcel during capture of the image data; and

transmitting said select image data over the communication network.

2. The method of claim 1 additionally comprising the step of transmitting an image of an overhead map with an indication of the property parcel boundaries displayed on the overhead map.

3. The method of claim 2 additionally comprising transmitting an indication of a centroid of the property parcel on the select image data.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the query indicating a geographic location of interest comprises a street address.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the query indicating a geographic location of interest comprises a click on a map.

6. The method of claim 2 additionally comprising the step of identifying a location of the location of interest and identifying a camera in proximity to the location of interest and a camera orientation of image capture directed towards the geographic location of interest at the time of image capture.

7. The method of claim 2 additionally including the step of transmitting meta data overlaying one or both of the map and the images.

8. A method of providing image data of a property parcel from a computer server, the method comprising:

transmitting over a communications network an image of a map including a representation of a street;

receiving a query over the communications network into the computer server, wherein said query comprises a click on the map and indicates a geographic location of interest;

associating a property parcel with said geographic location of interest;

identifying one or more images captured with a first image capture device oriented at a centroid of the property parcel at a time of image capture; and

transmitting said one or more images captured with the first image capture device oriented at a centroid of the property parcel over the communication network and a map view of the property parcel with an indication of the property parcel on the map.

9. The method of claim 8 additionally comprising the step of transmitting image data captured by one or more additional image capture devices located at a same point of capture as the first image capture device and oriented in a direction other than towards the centroid of the property parcel.

10. method of claim 9 wherein the one or more additional image capture devices comprise at least six image capture devices capturing data in a 360 degree arc.

11. The method of claim 10 wherein each image is associated with an image capture device orientation and location.

12. The method of claim 10 additionally comprising the step of transmitting stitched image data comprising images of the property parcel and based upon a location of two or more image capture devices capturing the stitched image data.

13. The method of claim 12 wherein the transmitted stitched data is additionally based upon a respective orientation of the two or more image capture devices capturing the stitched image data.

14. The method of claim 12 additionally comprising the step of transmitting an icon image indicating a centroid of the property parcel.

15. The method of claim 12 additionally including the step of transmitting metadata overlaying one or both of the map and the images.

16. A method of providing image data of a property parcel, the method comprising:

transmitting over a communications network an image of a map comprising a representation of a street and additionally comprising a representation of boundaries defining one or more property parcels;

receiving a query over the communications network into a computer server indicating a selection of one of the defined property parcels;

identifying image data captured with a first image capture device with a field of view oriented in a direction towards a centroid of the property parcel of interest at a time of image capture; and

transmitting said image data captured with the first image capture device with a field of view oriented in a direction towards a centroid of the property parcel of interest at a time of image capture over the communication network, and additionally transmitting a map view of the property parcel of interest with an indication of the property parcel of interest on the map.

17. The method of claim 16 wherein said query comprises a click on the map within the boundaries of a property parcel of interest.

18. The method of claim 16 wherein said query comprises receiving a street address of a property parcel of interest.

19. A method of generating a three-dimensional model of a geographic subject area, the method comprising:

capturing image data with an image capture device from disparate points along a continuum, wherein the image capture device is directed towards a centroid of the subject area;

generating with a computerized system a point cloud array;

generating a three-dimensional model of an object included on the geographic area, wherein the three-dimensional model comprises one or more polygon based models generated from the point cloud array; and

spraying at least a portion of the image data captured on the three dimensional model.

20. The method of claim 19 wherein the method additionally comprises a step of transmitting an image of an overhead map with an indication of the property parcel boundaries displayed on the overhead map and transmitting an indication of a centroid of the property parcel on the select image data.