Organization and maintenance of images using metadata

• US 7,840,892 B2
• Filed: 08/29/2003
• Issued: 11/23/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 08/29/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: III Holdings 3, LLC
• Original Assignee: Nokia Corporation
• Inventors: Cavén, Juha, Roth, Henri, Pyhälammi, Seppo, Lähteenmäki, Ilari
• Primary Examiner(s): Hong; Stephen S
• Assistant Examiner(s): TSUI, WILSON W
• Application Number:
  US10/651,211
• Publication Number:
  US 20050050043A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,643 Days
• Field of Search: 707/3, 348/207, 348/158, 382/102, 715/517, 715/243, 715/230, 715/273, 715/231
• US Class Current: 715/230
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/58 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually

Abstract

Data for electronic images is stored in a server. Metadata is assigned to each image file and categorizes each image according to one or more schemes. Possible metadata schemes include image date, one or more image subjects, and image location. The image files may then be searched based on the assigned metadata. Images may be stored in a database that includes at least one virtual folder corresponding to each metadata scheme, with each image having at least one entry in each folder. Each folder may further have subfolders that correspond to sub-categories of a categorization scheme. Each image may then have an entry in each subfolder which describes a part of the image metadata. A date search interface allows a user to select a year of interest, then a month, and then a day. A location search interface allows a user to select a subregion of a displayed region.

Claims

1. An apparatus comprising:

a memory;

a communications interface configured to connect to a user device through a communication network; and

a processor configured to;

control storage, in the memory, of at least one image received from the user device through the communication network, each received image having associated metadata categorizing said image according to at least two schemes, wherein

said at least two schemes include at least one of an image date, an image location and one or more image subjects, and

each image is stored in a database in the memory, the database including at least one virtual folder corresponding to each of the at least two metadata schemes, each image being stored in a single location within the memory, each virtual folder including a pointer to the image location;

identify a calendar entry in a calendar application based on the image date of the at least one image;

provide a suggestion for entering a metadata subject field of the at least one image based on the calendar entry;

control providing of a user interface with the at least one virtual folder corresponding to each of the at least two metadata schemes;

control displaying in the user interface simultaneous indications of years, months and days that are available for sequential user selection;

control displaying of an indication of the selectable years for which there are stored images having metadata corresponding to an indicated year;

control displaying of an indication of the selectable months for which there are stored images having metadata corresponding to an indicated month; and

control displaying of an indication of the selectable days for which there are stored images having metadata corresponding to an indicated day.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein at least one of the schemes comprises image date, and wherein the processor is further configured to:

control displaying of information regarding images corresponding to the selected one or more indications of years, months and days.

3. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the information regarding images comprises thumbnail images of the images.

4. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processor is further configured to:

control displaying of, upon selection of a year, an indication of the months of the selected year for which there are stored images having metadata corresponding to an indicated month.

5. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processor is further configured to:

control displaying of, upon selection of a month, an indication of the days of the selected month for which there are stored images having metadata corresponding to an indicated day.

6. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processor is further configured to:

control displaying of, upon selection of an indicated day, information regarding images having metadata corresponding to the selected day.

7. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processor is configured to:

control displaying of images corresponding to a selected date;

designate, upon selection of a year or month prior to selection of a day, a day of the selected year or month in which there are available images, and

control displaying of, prior to selection of a day, information regarding images having metadata corresponding to the designated day.

8. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein the processor is configured to designate the day by randomly choosing a day of the selected year or month in which there are available images.

9. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein the processor is configured to designate the day by choosing the first day in a numerically ordered series of days in which there are available images.

10. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein one of the schemes comprises image location, and wherein the processor is further configured to:

control providing of a user interface to select a map subregion of a displayed map region, and

control displaying of, upon selection of the map subregion, information regarding images having metadata corresponding to the selected map subregion.

11. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the processor is further configured to control displaying of, as part of the user interface to select a subregion, an indication of the subregions for which there are stored images having metadata corresponding to an indicated subregion.

12. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the processor is further configured to:

control providing of a user interface to select a sub-subregion of the selected subregion, the interface comprising an indication of the sub-subregions for which there are stored images having metadata corresponding to an indicated sub-subregion.

13. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processor is configured to:

group, upon designation of stored images by a user, the designated images into a user-defined image folder, and

group, upon designation of one or more image folders by a user, the designated folders into a higher level folder.

14. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein at least one of the two schemes comprises multiple subcategories, and wherein each image is indexed by each applicable subcategory.

15. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein the at least one scheme comprises image date, and wherein the subcategories comprise year of image creation and month of image creation.

16. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein the at least one scheme comprises one or more image subjects, and wherein the subcategories comprises individual subjects of at least one multisubject image.

17. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein the at least one scheme comprises image location, and wherein the subcategories comprise a region and a subregion.

18. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processor is further configured to identify, after selection of an image by a user, other images having metadata in common with the selected image, wherein the common metadata is metadata other than the metadata utilized to initially search for the selected image.

19. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processor is configured to:

control displaying of information about images in a first image group,

receive a selection of a first image from the first group,

control displaying of information about additional image groups of which the first image is also a member, and

control displaying of, upon selection from the additional image groups of a second image group, information about images in the second image group.

20. The apparatus of claim 19, wherein:

one of the schemes is one or more image subjects,

the first image has associated metadata categorizing the image according to multiple subjects of the image,

the first image group comprises other images having metadata corresponding to one of the multiple subjects, and

the second image group comprises images having metadata corresponding to another of the multiple subjects.

21. The apparatus of claim 1, and wherein the processor is further configured to:

control providing of a user interface to select at least one date component comprising a year, a month or a day,

control displaying of information regarding images in a date-based group, each image in the date-based group having metadata corresponding to the selected date component,

receive a selection of an image in the date-based group,

control displaying of information about first and second subject-based groups, the first subject-based group containing images having metadata corresponding to a first subject of the selected image, and the second subject-based group containing images having metadata corresponding to a second subject of the selected image,

receive a selection of the first subject-based group, and

control displaying of information regarding images in the first subject-based group.

22. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processor is configured to control storing of images for multiple users, wherein the images are organized by user.

23. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the user interface is delivered to a user device.

24. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the user device is a mobile device and the communication network is a wireless communication network.

25. The apparatus of claim 24, wherein the user interface is controllable by the mobile device.

26. A machine-readable medium having machine-executable instructions that, when executed, cause a machine to perform:

controlling storage of images transmitted through a communication network in a memory, each image having associated metadata categorizing said image according to at least two schemes, wherein

said at least two schemes include at least one of an image date, an image location and one or more image subjects, and

the images are stored in a database having at least one virtual folder corresponding to each of the at least two metadata schemes, a copy of each image being stored in a single location within the memory, each virtual folder including a pointer to the image location,

identifying a calendar entry in a calendar application based on the image date of at least one image,

providing a suggestion for entering a metadata subject field of the at least one image based on the calendar entry,

controlling providing of a user interface with the at least one virtual folder,

controlling displaying in the user interface simultaneous indications of years, months and days that are available for sequential user selection,

controlling displaying of an indication of the selectable years for which there are stored images having metadata corresponding to an indicated year,

controlling displaying of an indication of the selectable months for which there are stored images having metadata corresponding to an indicated month, and

controlling displaying of an indication of the selectable days for which there are stored images having metadata corresponding to an indicated day.

27. The machine-readable medium of claim 26, wherein one of the schemes comprises image date, and wherein the machine-executable instructions, when executed, cause the machine to control displaying of information regarding images corresponding to the selected one or more indications of years, months and days.

28. The machine-readable medium of claim 26, wherein one of the schemes comprises image location, and wherein the machine-executable instructions, when executed, cause the machine to:

control providing of a user interface to select a subregion of a displayed region, and

control displaying of, upon selection of a subregion, information regarding images having metadata corresponding to the selected subregion.

29. The machine-readable medium of claim 26, wherein one of the schemes comprises image date and one of the schemes comprises one or more image subjects, and wherein the machine-executable instructions, when executed, cause the machine to:

control providing of a user interface to select at least one date component comprising a year, a month or a day,

control displaying of information regarding images in a date-based group, each image in the date-based group having metadata corresponding to a selected date component,

receive a selection of an image in the date-based group,

control displaying of information about first and second subject-based groups, the first subject-based group containing images having metadata corresponding to a first subject of the selected image, and the second subject-based group containing images having metadata corresponding to a second subject of the selected image,

receive a selection of the first subject-based group, and

control displaying of information regarding images in the first subject-based group.

30. A method comprising:

storing images in a database in a memory, each image having associated metadata categorizing said image according to at least two schemes, the database including at least one virtual folder corresponding to each of the at least two metadata schemes, a copy of each image being stored in a single location within the memory, each virtual folder including a pointer to the image location,

identifying, by a processor, a calendar entry in a calendar application based on an image date of at least one image,

providing a suggestion for entering a metadata subject field of the at least one image based on the calendar entry,

controlling providing of a user interface with the at least one virtual folder,

controlling displaying in the user interface simultaneous indications of years, months and days that are available for sequential user selection,

controlling displaying of an indication of the selectable years for which there are stored images having metadata corresponding to an indicated year,

controlling displaying of an indication of the selectable months for which there are stored images having metadata corresponding to an indicated month, and

controlling displaying of an indication of the selectable days for which there are stored images having metadata corresponding to an indicated day.

31. The method according to claim 30, said at least two schemes including at least one of an image date, an image location, and one or more image subjects.

32. The method according to claim 30, where at least one of the schemes comprises image date, the method further comprising controlling displaying of information regarding images corresponding to the selected one or more indications of years, months and days.

33. The method of claim 30, further comprising controlling displaying of, upon selection of a year, an indication of the months of the selected year for which there are stored images having metadata corresponding to an indicated month.

34. The method of claim 30, further comprising controlling displaying of, upon selection of a month, an indication of the days of the selected month for which there stored images having metadata corresponding to an indicated day.

35. The method of claim 30, further comprising controlling displaying of, upon selection of an indicated day, information regarding images having metadata corresponding to the selected day.

36. The method according to claim 30, wherein one of the schemes comprises image date and one of the schemes comprises one or more image subjects, further comprising:

controlling providing of a user interface to select at least one date component comprising a year, a month or a day,

controlling displaying of information regarding images in a date-based group, each image in the date-based group having metadata corresponding to the selected date component,

receiving a selection of an image in the date-based group,

controlling displaying of information about first and second subject-based groups, the first subject-based group containing images having metadata corresponding to a first subject of the selected image, and the second subject-based group containing images having metadata corresponding to a second subject of the selected image,

receiving a selection of the first subject-based group, and

controlling displaying of information regarding images in the first subject-based group.

37. An apparatus comprising:

a memory;

a communications interface configured to connect to a user device through a communication network; and

a processor configured to;

store, in the memory, at least one image received from the user device through the communication network, each received image having associated metadata categorizing said image according to at least two schemes, wherein said at least two schemes include at least one of an image date, an image location and one or more image subjects, and each image is stored in a database in the memory, the database including at least one virtual folder corresponding to each of the at least two metadata schemes, each image being stored in a single location within the memory, and each virtual folder including a pointer of the each image to the image location, wherein the processor is configured to identify, after selection of an image in one virtual folder by a user, other images having metadata in common with the selected image, wherein the common metadata is metadata other than the metadata utilized to initially create the virtual folder,

identify a calendar entry in a calendar application based on the image date of the at least one image;

provide a suggestion for entering a metadata subject field of the at least one image based on the calendar entry,

control providing of a user interface with the at least one virtual folder;

control displaying in the user interface simultaneous indications of years, months and days that are available for sequential user selection;

control displaying an indication of selectable years for which there are stored images having metadata corresponding to an indicated year;

control displaying an indication of selectable months for which there are stored images having metadata corresponding to an indicated month; and

control displaying of an indication of selectable days for which there are stored images having metadata corresponding to an indicated day.

38. A method comprising:

storing images in a database in a memory, each image having associated metadata categorizing said image according to at least two schemes, the database including at least one virtual folder corresponding to each of the at least two metadata schemes, a copy of each image being stored in a single location within the memory, each virtual folder including a pointer to the image location, wherein a processor is configured to identify, after selection of an image in one virtual folder by a user, other images having metadata in common with the selected image, wherein the common metadata is metadata other than the metadata utilized to initially create the virtual folder,

identifying, by the processor, a calendar entry in a calendar application based on an image date of at least one image,

providing a suggestion for entering a metadata subject field of the at least one image based on the calendar entry,

controlling providing of a user interface with the at least one virtual folder,

controlling displaying in the user interface simultaneous indications of years, months and days that are available for sequential user selection,

controlling displaying of an indication of the selectable years for which there are stored images having metadata corresponding to an indicated year,

controlling displaying of an indication of the selectable months for which there are stored images having metadata corresponding to an indicated month, and

controlling displaying of an indication of the selectable days for which there are stored images having metadata corresponding to an indicated day.