METHOD OF SELECTING IMPORTANT DIGITAL IMAGES

• US 20140254945A1
• Filed: 05/22/2014
• Published: 09/11/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 09/24/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Kodak Alaris Inc (KPP (no. 2) Trustees Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Kodak Alaris Inc (KPP (no. 2) Trustees Ltd.)
• Inventors: Hibino, Stacie L., Manico, Joseph A.
• Granted Patent: US 9,858,504 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/218
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/54 Browsing; Visualisation therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/5838 using colour
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/5854 using shape and object relationship
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/20 in augmented reality scenes
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/30 in albums, collections or shared content, e.g. social network photos or video

Abstract

A method for selecting important digital images in a collection of digital images, comprising: analyzing the digital images in the collection of digital images to identify one or more sets of similar digital images; identifying one or more sets of similar digital images having the largest number of similar digital images; selecting one or more digital images from the identified largest sets of similar digital images to be important digital images; and storing an indication of the selected important digital image in a processor accessible memory.

Claims

1. A method for selecting important digital images in a collection of digital images, comprising:

using a processor to automatically analyze the digital images in the collection of digital images to identify one or more sets of similar digital images;

identifying one or more sets of similar digital images having the largest number of similar digital images;

using a processor to automatically select one or more digital images from the identified largest sets of similar digital images to be important digital images;

storing an indication of the selected important digital image in a processor accessible memory; and

using a Graphic User Interface (GUI) for further evaluating the one or more set of selected important digital images to assess relative levels of importance.

32. The method of claim 1 wherein the digital images within a set of similar digital images have a similar visual appearance, have a similar capture time, are captured within a specified time interval, are captured at recurring time intervals, have a similar capture location, have a similar image classification, are captured sequentially.

33. The method of claim 1 wherein an event clustering algorithm is used to divide the collection of digital images into event clusters, and wherein the digital images within a single event cluster are designated as a set of similar digital images.

34. The method of claim 1 wherein the at least one digital image is selected from each of the identified sets of similar digital images to be important digital images.

35. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of selecting the important digital image from the identified largest sets of similar digital images includes:

using a processor to automatically analyze the digital images in the identified largest sets of similar digital images to determine an indication of image quality; and

selecting one or more digital images to be the important digital image responsive to the determined indication of image quality.

36. The method of claim 35 wherein the digital image in each of the identified largest sets of similar digital images having the highest image quality is selected to be an important digital image.

37. The method of claim 35 wherein the digital image in each of the identified largest sets of similar digital images having the highest image quality is selected to be an important digital image, except that if the digital image having the highest image quality has an image quality less than a predetermined threshold it is not selected to be an important digital image.

38. The method of claim 35 wherein the digital images in the identified largest sets of similar digital images having an image quality an image quality greater than a specified threshold are selected to be important digital images.

39. The method of claim 38 wherein the specified threshold is adaptively determined such that a specified number of important digital images are selected.

40. The method of claim 35 wherein the image quality is determined responsive to computing an aesthetic image quality metric.

41. The method of claim 40 wherein the aesthetic image quality metric is responsive to the presentation of any faces detected in the digital image.

42. The method of claim 35 wherein the image quality is determined responsive to one or more quantitative image attributes.

43. The method of claim 42 wherein the quantitative image attributes include an image sharpness attribute, an image noise attribute, an image colorfulness attribute or an image contrast attribute.

44. The method of claim 35 further including the step of identifying one or more persons within a digital image, and wherein the image quality is determined responsive to whether the identified persons have a known social relationship to a reference individual.

45. The method of claim 35 wherein the image quality is determined responsive to utilization patterns for the digital image or is determined responsive to a user-designated rating.

46. The method of claim 1 wherein the identified largest sets of similar digital images are presented to a user on a soft copy display, together with an indication of the selected important digital images.

47. The method of claim 46 further including a user interface to enable the user to confirm or override the selection of the important digital images.

48. The method of claim 47 further including updating the automatic selection method used to select the important digital images to preferentially select digital images similar to the user-selected important digital images.

49. The method of claim 1 wherein using the GUI comprises identifying a single image or a collage of a selected number of the highest quality digital images for the cover of a photo album or DVD case, identifying which digital images are to be emphasized or displayed larger in a photographic product produced using the selected important digital images, identifying which digital images are to be used as navigational icons in the GUI for browsing the digital image collection, clicking on a particular digital image to toggle it between being included or excluded from the set of important digital images, or using elements to visually distinguish between levels of importance.

50. The method of claim 49 wherein the GUI element comprises a dashed rectangle to indicate emphasized images, a double rectangle to indicate a best-in-set image, an image size, star rating, or heart icon.

51. The method of claim 1 wherein using the GUI comprises providing a sequence in which the important digital images are displayed is based on rank order of importance, time, themes, or a user vector of metadata or providing a set of radio buttons that can be used to change the level of importance of a given important digital image, wherein a user can click on the radio button of the desired level of importance to set the level of importance to that value.

52. The method of claim 51 wherein the radio buttons are included on each of the important digital images or wherein the radio buttons are shown only when a user selects a particular image.

2-31. -31. (canceled)