Method, system and article of manufacture for linking a video to a scanned document

• US 7,051,271 B1
• Filed: 05/31/2000
• Issued: 05/23/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 05/31/2000
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Fuji Xerox Company Limited (Fujifilm Holdings Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Fuji Xerox Company Limited (Fujifilm Holdings Corporation)
• Inventors: Girgensohn, Andreas, Chiu, Patrick, Foote, Jonathan T., Boreczky, John S.
• Primary Examiner(s): Shah, Sanjiv
• Application Number:
  US09/584,205
• Time in Patent Office: 2,183 Days
• Field of Search: 715/501.1, 715/513, 715/523, 715/512, 715/541, 715/500.1, 382/250, 382/298, 358/498, 708/402
• US Class Current: 715/203
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/00318 with a multi-media apparatus
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/0044 for image preview or review, e.g. to help the user position a sheet
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/32101 Display, printing, storage or transmission of additional information, e.g. ID code, date and time or title
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 2201/3226 of identification information or the like, e.g. ID code, index, title, part of an image, reduced-size image
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 2201/3267 of motion picture signals, e.g. video clip
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 2201/3274 Storage or retrieval of prestored additional information

Abstract

Video recordings of meetings and scanned paper documents are natural digital documents that come out of a meeting. These can be placed on the Internet for easy access, with links generated between them by matching scanned documents to a segment of the video referencing the scanned document. Furthermore, annotations made on the paper documents during the meeting can be extracted and used as indexes to the video. An orthonormal transform, such as a Digital Cosine Transform (DCT) is used to compare scanned documents to video frames.

Claims

1. A method for linking a scanned document to a video, comprising the steps of:

(a) obtaining a scanned document having margins;

(b) removing the margins from the scanned document;

(c) scaling the scanned document;

(d) removing the least significant information from the scanned document;

(e) transforming the scanned document of step d into a scanned document identifier;

(f) obtaining a video file having a plurality of video frames;

(g) transforming the plurality of video frames into a plurality of respective video frame identifiers;

(h) comparing the scanned document identifier with the plurality of video frame identifiers; and

(i) linking the scanned document to a first video frame in the plurality of video frames.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the obtaining a scanned document step includes the step of scanning a document.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the removing the margins step includes reducing the boundary box of the scanned document until the margins having a uniform color is removed.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the scaling step includes scaling the scanned document to approximately 64 pixels by approximately 64 pixels.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the transforming the scanned document step includes using a orthonormal transform.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the orthonormal transform is a discrete cosine transform.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the obtaining a video file includes recording an event with a video recorder.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the transforming the plurality of video frames step includes using a orthonormal transform.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the orthonormal transform is a discrete cosine transform.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the comparing step includes comparing color information from the scanned document and color information from the plurality of video frames.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the linking step includes linking the scanned document to a first and a second frame in the plurality of frames.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the scanned document includes handwritten annotations.

13. The method of the claim 12, further comprising the step of extracting the annotations from the scanned document.

14. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of viewing a segment of the video by double-clicking a universal resource locator address of the scanned document.