SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR RECOMMENDING PLEASANT ROUTES FROM THE SENTIMENT OF GEO-TAGGED PHOTOGRAPHS

• US 20150323337A1
• Filed: 05/07/2014
• Published: 11/12/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 05/07/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Verizon Patent and Licensing Incorporated (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Yahoo! Inc. (Apollo Global Management, Inc.), International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: AIELLO, LUCA MARIA, QUERCIA, DANIELE, SCHIFANELLA, ROSSANO
• Granted Patent: US 9,410,816 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3407 specially adapted for specific applications
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3453 Special cost functions, i.e. other than distance or default speed limit of road segments
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3476 using point of interest [POI] information, e.g. a route passing visible POIs
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/36 Input/output arrangements for on-board computers
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3676 Overview of the route on the road map
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3682 output of POI information on a road map G01C21/3614, G01C21/3685 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 5/04 Inference or reasoning models
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 7/01 Probabilistic graphical models, e.g. probabilistic networks

Abstract

A system and method generates and recommends a short and pleasant path between a source s and destination d in a geo-location such as a city or city center. The routes are not only short but emotionally pleasant, offering an engaging user experience, going beyond just showing paths on a map.

Claims

1. A method for providing a pleasant route within a geographic location, comprising:

receiving a source address and a destination address within a geographical area;

building a location graph of the geographic location with nodes representing sites within the geographic location;

computing a pleasantness score for the nodes;

selecting a route from the source address to the destination address that has a highest pleasantness score among the nodes; and

presenting the selected route on a map of the geographical area.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein building the location graph comprises:

building a geographical bounding box for the geographic location;

dividing the geographical bounding box into a plurality of cells, wherein a size of each cell is of a walkable distance; and

linking geographic neighboring cells to form the location graph.

3. The method of claim 2 further comprising:

weighting links between neighboring cells by a geographic distance between cell centroids.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein computing the pleasantness score comprises retrieving data about the nodes from a crowdsourcing website.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein computing the pleasantness score comprises

accessing geo-tagged photos of the geographic location.

6. The method of claim 5 further comprising processing tags associated with the geo-tagged photos to capture words expressing emotional and cognitive perceptions of the node.

7. The method of claim 5 further comprising gathering statistics for the geo-tagged photos to predict scores for each of the nodes in each of three attributes of quiet, happy, and beauty.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein selecting the route comprises:

identifying M shortest paths connecting the source address and the destination address;

iteratively computing an average rank for locations within m paths, wherein m is less than M;

at each iteration, recording the path with a best average rank;

terminating when the best average rank improves less than a predetermined amount;

repeating steps of identifying, iteratively computing, recording and terminating for attributes of beauty, quiet, and happy to obtain three paths between the source address and the destination address.

9. An information processing system for providing a pleasant route within a geographic location, said information processing system comprising:

a processor device; and

a memory operably coupled with the processor device, said memory comprising computer-executable instructions causing a computer to perform;

using an interface, receiving a source address and a destination address within a geographical area;

building a location graph of the geographic location with nodes representing sites within the geographic location;

computing a pleasantness score for the nodes;

selecting a route from the source address to the destination address that has a highest pleasantness score among the nodes; and

presenting the selected route on a map of the geographical area.

10. The information processing system of claim 9 wherein the computer-executable instructions for building the location graph comprise:

building a geographical bounding box for the geographic location;

dividing the geographical bounding box into a plurality of cells, wherein a size of each cell is of a walkable distance; and

linking geographic neighboring cells to form the location graph.

11. The information processing system of claim 10 wherein the computer-executable instructions further comprise weighting links between neighboring cells by a geographic distance between cell centroids.

12. The information processing system of claim 9 the computer-executable instructions for computing the pleasantness score comprise retrieving data about the nodes from a crowdsourcing website.

13. The information processing system of claim 9 wherein the computer-executable instructions for computing the pleasantness score comprise accessing geo-tagged photos of the geographic location.

14. The information processing system of claim 13 wherein the computer-executable instructions further comprise processing tags associated with the geo-tagged photos to capture words expressing emotional and cognitive perceptions of the node.

15. The information processing system of claim 13 wherein the computer-executable instructions further comprise gathering statistics for the geo-tagged photos to predict scores for each of the nodes in each of three attributes of quiet, happy, and beauty.

16. The information processing system of claim 9 wherein the computer-executable instructions for selecting the route comprise:

identifying M shortest paths connecting the source address and the destination address;

iteratively computing an average rank for locations within m paths, wherein m is less than M;

at each iteration, recording the path with a best average rank;

terminating when the best average rank improves less than a predetermined amount;

repeating steps of identifying, iteratively computing, recording and terminating for attributes of beauty, quiet, and happy to obtain three paths between the source address and the destination address.

17. A computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium with computer-executable instructions stored thereon, said computer-executable instructions comprising:

receiving a source address and a destination address within a geographical area;

building a location graph of the geographic location with nodes representing sites within the geographic location;

computing a pleasantness score for the nodes;

selecting a route from the source address to the destination address that has a highest pleasantness score among the nodes; and

presenting the selected route on a map of the geographical area.

18. The computer program product of claim 17 wherein the computer-executable instructions further comprise:

identifying M shortest paths connecting the source address and the destination address;

iteratively computing an average rank for locations within m paths, wherein m is less than M;

at each iteration, recording the path with a best average rank;

terminating when the best average rank improves less than a predetermined amount;

repeating steps of identifying, iteratively computing, recording and terminating for attributes of beauty, quiet, and happy to obtain three paths between the source address and the destination address.

19. The computer program product of claim 17 wherein the computer-executable instructions for building the location graph comprise:

building a geographical bounding box for the geographic location;

dividing the geographical bounding box into a plurality of cells, wherein a size of each cell is of a walkable distance; and

linking geographic neighboring cells to form the location graph.

20. The computer program product of claim 19 wherein the computer-executable instructions further comprise weighting links between neighboring cells by a geographic distance between cell centroids.