Identifying sight for a location

• US 7,707,208 B2
• Filed: 10/10/2006
• Issued: 04/27/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 10/10/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Ma, Wei-Ying, Zhang, Lei, Jing, Feng
• Primary Examiner(s): Fleurantin; Jean B.
• Assistant Examiner(s): MYINT, DENNIS Y
• Application Number:
  US11/548,253
• Publication Number:
  US 20080086468A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,295 Days
• Field of Search: 707/5, 707/3, 707/4
• US Class Current: 707/724
• 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 16/9537 Spatial or temporal dependent retrieval, e.g. spatiotemporal queries

Abstract

A method and system for identifying sights associated with a location and for displaying images associated with those sights is provided. A tour system identifies sights associated with a location by submitting a search request formed using the location to an image search service. The tour system identifies salient phrases of metadata of the search results to be the candidate sight names. The tour system also provides a user interface for displaying the images associated with the locations. The user interface may present a slideshow of sights encountered when traveling on a trip.

Claims

1. A method in a computing system for identifying sights for a location, the method comprising:

submitting to a search service a search request based on the location, the search request being one or more words identifying the location;

receiving from the search service search results of the submitted search request, the search results including a snippet for each search result;

identifying by the computing system salient phrases from the snippets of the search results based on analysis of phrases of the snippets of the search results, each salient phrase being a candidate sight; and

for each candidate sight,

submitting the candidate sight to a geographic name service;

receiving from the geographic name service an indication of whether the candidate sight is a geographic name;

when the geographic name service indicates that the candidate sight is a geographic name, selecting by the computing system the candidate sight as a sight for the location

wherein the selected sights are the identified sights for the location.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the search service is an image search service.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein when the geographic name service indicates that the name of the candidate sight is not a geographic name, not indicating the candidate sight as a sight for the location.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the search service is an image search service and wherein the selecting as sights for the location factors in quality of an image as indicated by metadata of the search results.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the search service is an image search service and wherein the selecting of candidate sights includes:

scoring the identified salient phrases to be a name for a cluster of images of the search results; and

submitting a name of a candidate sight with a score above a threshold to a geographic name service.

6. A computing system for identifying sights for a location, comprising:

a memory containing computer-executable instructions of

a component that submits to an image search service a search request based on the location and receives from the image search service search results that identify images and associated metadata that includes quality of the images, the search request including words relating to the location;

a component that identifies candidate sights from metadata associated with the identified images of the search results and scores the candidate sights based on relevance of the metadata of images to the location and based on quality of the images; and

a component that submits names of candidate sights identified from search results received from the image search service to a sight of interest name service and selects sights for the location based on candidate sights that are sights of interest and their scores

a processor for executing the computer-executable instructions stored in the memory.

7. The computing system of claim 6 wherein the identifying of candidate sights includes identifying salient phrases from the search results and the scoring of each identified salient phrase to be a name for a cluster of images of the search results.

8. The computing system of claim 6 wherein the sight of interest name service is a geographic name service and wherein a candidate sight corresponds to a sight of interest when the geographic name service indicates that the name of the candidate sight is a geographic name.

9. The computing system of claim 6 wherein the identifying of candidate sights includes identifying salient phrases from the search results and the scoring of each identified salient phrase to be a name for a cluster of images of the search result, wherein the sight of interest name service is a geographic name service, and wherein a candidate sight corresponds to a sight of interest when the geographic name service indicates that the name of the candidate sight is a geographic name.

10. A computer-readable medium for controlling a computing system to identify sights for a location, by a method comprising:

submitting to an image search service a search request based on the location, the search request including one or more words identifying the location;

receiving from the image search service search results of the search request that include identified images and associated metadata;

identifying names of candidate sights from the metadata associated with the identified images; and

selecting as sights for the location those candidate sights that correspond to sights of interest by submitting the names of the candidate sights identified from the search results received from the image search service to a geographic name service and, when the geographic name service indicates that the identified name is a geographic name, indicating that the candidate sight is a sight of interest associated with the location.

11. The computer-readable medium of claim 10 wherein the identifying of candidate sights includes identifying salient phrases from the metadata and scoring the identified salient phrases to be a name for a cluster of search results.

12. The computer-readable medium of claim 11 wherein the scoring of the identified salient phrases factors in quality of the images as indicated by the metadata.

13. The computer-readable medium of claim 10 wherein the identifying of candidate sights includes identifying salient phrases from the metadata and scoring the identified salient phrases based on relevance to the location.

14. The computer-readable medium of claim 13 wherein relevance to the location is based on similarity between the location and the metadata that contains an identified salient phrase.

15. The computer-readable medium of claim 10 wherein the selecting as sights for the location includes submitting a name of a candidate sight to a geographic name service and, when the geographic name service indicates that the name of the candidate sight is a geographic name, selecting the candidate sight as a sight for the location.

16. The computer-readable medium of claim 10 wherein the identifying of candidate sights includes identifying salient phrases from the metadata and scoring the identified salient phrases to be a name representing a cluster of images and wherein the selecting as sights for the location includes submitting a name of a candidate sight to a geographic name service and, when the geographic name service indicates that the name of the candidate sight is a geographic name, selecting the candidate sight as a sight for the location.

17. The computer-readable medium of claim 10 wherein the image search service searches an image forum having quality ratings and including normalizing the quality ratings of different photographic image forums.