Image transmitting system, an image transmitting method, and a machine readable medium storing thereon a computer program for transmitting images

• US 7,697,039 B2
• Filed: 07/25/2005
• Issued: 04/13/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 09/10/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Fujifilm Corporation (Fujifilm Holdings Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Fujifilm Corporation (Fujifilm Holdings Corporation)
• Inventors: Nakajima, Kazuki, Shiota, Kazuo, Ohtsuka, Shuichi
• Primary Examiner(s): Ho; Tuan
• Assistant Examiner(s): Camargo; Marly
• Application Number:
  US11/187,935
• Publication Number:
  US 20060055825A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,723 Days
• Field of Search: 34823199-2319, 348/563, 348/231.3, 348/231.2, 725/135, 382/181, 382/117, 382/118, 382/305, 382/115, 707/200, 386/1, 386/45, 386/46, 386/125, 386/126
• US Class Current: 348/231.2
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/583 using metadata automatically derived from the content
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 1/00347 with another still picture apparatus, e.g. hybrid still picture apparatus circuits or arrangements for control or supervision between image input and image output device H04N1/32
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4318 by altering the content in the rendering process, e.g. blanking, blurring or masking an image region image enhancement or restoration in general G06T5/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4415 using biometric characteristics of the user, e.g. by voice recognition or fingerprint scanning cryptography using biological data H04L9/3231; authentication in networks using biometric H04L63/0861
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 2201/0087 Image storage device

Abstract

An image transmitting system is provided, wherein the system includes: a first image storing module storing a plurality of images included in a first electronic album; a second image storing module storing a plurality of images included in a second electronic album; a feature extracting module for extracting a feature amount of an object included in each of the plurality of images stored in the second image storing module; an image selecting module for selecting an image including an object showing correspondence with the object included in the image stored in the second image storing module, which is higher than a predetermined reference value, out of the plurality of images stored in the first image storing module on the basis of the extracted feature amount; and an image transmitting module for retrieving the selected image from the first image storing module and storing the image in the second image storing module to transmit the image from the first image storing module to the image storing module.

Claims

1. An electronic image album creating system for editing a second electronic image album with reference to a first electronic image album comprising:

a first image storing module storing a plurality of images in the first electronic image album;

a second image storing module storing a plurality of images in the second electronic image album;

a feature extracting module for extracting a feature amount of an object included in each of the plurality of images stored in said second image storing module;

an image selecting module for selecting an image out of the plurality of images stored in said first image storing module on the basis of the feature amount extracted by said feature extracting module, the selected image including an object having a feature amount the similarity of which to that of the object included in the image stored in said second image storing module is higher than a predetermined reference value; and

an image transmitting module for retrieving the image selected by said image selecting module from said first image storing module and storing the image in said second image storing module as a result of the transmission of the image retrieved from said first image storing module to said second image storing module.

2. The electronic image album creating system as claimed in claim 1, wherein an image including the owner of the second electronic image album has been stored in said second image storing module, and said image selecting module selects an image including the owner of the second electronic image album out of the plurality of images stored in said first image storing module.

3. The electronic image album creating system as claimed in claim 2, wherein an image including the owner of the first electronic image album has been stored in said first image storing module, and said image selecting module selects an image including both of the owners of the first and second electronic image albums out of the plurality of images stored in said first image storing module.

4. The electronic image album creating system as claimed in claim 1, wherein, out of kinds of objects included in each of the plurality of images stored in said second image storing module, said image selecting module selects an image including an object of a kind to which more objects belong than another kind out of the plurality of images stored in said first image storing module with high probability.

5. The electronic image album creating system as claimed in claim 1, wherein said image selecting module determines the reference value for correspondence between an object included in an image stored in said first image storing module and an object included in an image stored in said second image storing module on the basis of the number of images stored in the first image storing module.

6. The electronic image album creating system as claimed in claim 1, further comprising:

a person recognizing module for recognizing a plurality of persons included in each of the plurality of images stored in said second image storing module; and

an intimacy evaluating module for evaluating intimacy between persons included in at least a part of the plurality of images stored in said second image storing module on the basis of the recognition result of said person recognizing module,

wherein an image including the owner of the second electronic image album has been stored in said second image storing module, and said image selecting module selects an image including a person showing correspondence with a person showing intimacy with the owner of the second electronic image album higher than a predetermined reference value, the correspondence being higher than another predetermined reference value, out of the plurality of images stored in said first image storing module.

9. The electronic image album editing system as claimed in claim 6, wherein said intimacy evaluating module evaluates the intimacy between a first person and a second person as higher, when the number of images including both of the first person and the second person included in at least a part of the plurality of images stored in said second image storing module is larger.

10. The electronic image album editing system as claimed in claim 9, wherein said intimacy evaluating module evaluates the intimacy as the number of images including both of the first person and the second person.

11. The electronic image album editing system as claimed in claim 6, further comprising a feature selecting module that detects a person identifier identifying the owner of the second electronic album on the basis of the image including the owner of the second electronic album and the result of recognizing persons included in the image recognized by said person recognizing module, and the feature selecting module detects a person identifier of a person whose intimacy with respect to the owner of the second electronic album is larger than a predetermined reference value on the basis of the person identifier identifying the owner of the second electronic album and the result of evaluating intimacy evaluated by said intimacy evaluating module.

7. A method for creating an electronic image album by editing a second electronic image album with reference to a first electronic image album, wherein a first image storing module stores a plurality of images in the first electronic image album, a second image storing module stores a plurality of images in the second electronic image album, and the method comprises:

a feature extracting step of extracting a feature amount of an object included in each of the plurality of images stored in said second image storing module;

an image selecting step of selecting an image out of the plurality of images stored in said first image storing module on the basis of the feature amount extracted in said feature extracting step, the selected image including an object having a feature amount the similarity of which to that of the object included in the image stored in said second image storing module is higher than a predetermined reference value; and

an image transmitting step of retrieving the image selected in said image selecting step from said first image storing module and storing the image in said second image storing module as a result of the transmission of the image retrieved from said first image storing module to said second image storing module.

8. A machine readable medium storing thereon a computer program for making a computer function as an electronic image album creating system for editing a second electronic image album with reference to a first electronic image album, the computer comprising:

a first image storing module storing a plurality of images in a first electronic image album;

a second image storing module storing a plurality of images in a second electronic image album;

a feature extracting module for extracting a feature amount of an object included in each of the plurality of images stored in said second image storing module;

an image selecting module for selecting an image out of the plurality of images stored in said first image storing module on the basis of the feature amount extracted by said feature extracting module, the selected image including an object having a feature amount the similarity of which to that of the object included in the image stored in said second image storing module is higher than a predetermined reference value; and

an image transmitting module for retrieving the image selected by said image selecting module from said first image storing module and storing the image in said second image storing module as a result of the transmission of the image retrieved from said first image storing module to said second image storing module.