Capturing and combining media data and geodata in a composite file

• US 7,921,114 B2
• Filed: 04/10/2008
• Issued: 04/05/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 04/10/2008
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Abergel, Meir E, Figueroa, Joseph
• Primary Examiner(s): Breene; John
• Assistant Examiner(s): Ly; Anh
• Application Number:
  US12/100,415
• Publication Number:
  US 20090259686A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,090 Days
• Field of Search: 707/789, 707/780, 707/741, 707/758, 707/803, 707/737, 707/743, 707/788, 701/207, 701/200, 701/213, 701/241, 701/215, 701/201, 701/209, 715/747, 715/757, 715/738, 382/218, 382/115, 382/100, 382/176
• US Class Current: 707/743
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/29 Geographical information databases
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/48 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/487 using geographical or spatial information, e.g. location
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9537 Spatial or temporal dependent retrieval, e.g. spatiotemporal queries

Abstract

Systems and methods are provided for capturing and combining media data and geodata into a composite file. The system may include a media data capture module configured to capture media data at a plurality of geographic locations along a path in a geographic area, and to store the media data in a media data stream. The system may further include a geodata capture module configured to capture geodata indicating the geographic locations along the path at which the media data was captured. The system may also include a multiplexing module for interleaving the media data and the geodata into a composite file.

Claims

1. A computer system for capturing and combining media data and geodata, comprising:

a media data capture module configured to capture media data at a plurality of geographic locations along a path in a geographic area, and to store the media data in a media data stream;

a geodata capture module configured to capture geodata identifying each of the plurality of geographic locations along the path at which the media data was captured with a longitude value and a latitude value; and

a multiplexing module for interleaving the media data and the geodata as respective one or more media objects and one or more geodata objects into a composite file, wherein the composite file includes a header describing contents of the composite file, the header including identifying objects that identify the one or more media objects including the media data, and the one or more geodata objects including the geodata, and a body including the one or more media objects and the one or more geodata objects, wherein each of the geodata objects includes a stream number identifier and a media object identifier identifying a corresponding media object to which the respective geodata object relates;

wherein the header includes parsing information to describe how to parse the body as a streaming file.

2. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the composite file is configured to be displayed on a graphical user interface.

3. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the composite file is a streaming file type or a downloadable file type.

4. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the media data includes video data and/or audio data.

5. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the geodata identifies one or more of a date, a time, a latitude, a longitude, and an altitude.

6. The computer system of claim 1, further comprising an extended data capture module configured to capture extended data to be combined with the geodata into the composite file.

7. The computer system of claim 6, wherein the extended data includes one or more of weather data, road condition data, traffic condition data, travel data, and keyword data.

8. The computer system of claim 6, further comprising a graphical user interface module configured to display a graphical user interface on a display, wherein the extended data is received by the graphical user interface and sent to the extended data capture module.

9. The computer system of claim 6, wherein the extended data is downloaded from a data service via a computer network by the extended data capture module.

10. A computing device configured to store media data and geodata in a composite file structure in non-volatile memory, the composite file structure comprising:

a body including;

one or more media objects including media data captured at a plurality of geographic locations along a path in a geographic area, and

one or more geodata objects including geodata identifying each of the plurality of geographic locations with a latitude value and a longitude value, each of the one or more geodata objects corresponding to the one or more media objects, wherein the media data objects and the geodata objects are interleaved in the body of the composite file structure; and

a header describing contents of the composite file and including objects identifying the one or more media objects and the one or more geodata objects, wherein each of the geodata objects includes a stream number identifier and a media object identifier identifying a corresponding media object to which the respective geodata object relates;

wherein the header includes parsing information to describe how to parse the body as a streaming file.

11. The computing device of claim 10, wherein the one or more geodata objects each includes a latitude field for including the latitude value, and a longitude field for including the longitude value.

12. The computing device of claim 11, wherein each geodata object includes an altitude field for holding an altitude value which identifies an altitude of the geographic location.

13. The computing device of claim 10, wherein the geodata objects are interleaved with the media objects and then sliced into payloads and embedded into packets.

14. The computing device of claim 10, wherein the file format is structured as an Advanced Systems Format (ASF) data stream.

15. The computing device of claim 10, wherein the header includes a header object to identify the composite file as an ASF stream.

16. The computing device of claim 10 wherein the media data is in one of the following formats WMV, MPEG and AVI.

17. A method for combining geodata with media data, comprising:

capturing media data at a plurality of geographic locations along a path in a geographic area;

capturing geodata identifying each of the plurality of geographic locations with a longitude value and a latitude value; and

interleaving the media data and the geodata as respective one or more media objects and one or more geodata objects into a composite file, wherein the composite file includes a header describing contents of the composite file, the header including identifying objects that identify the one or more media objects including the media data, and the one or more geodata objects including the geodata, and a body including the one or more media objects and the one or more geodata objects, wherein each of the geodata objects includes a stream number identifier and a media object identifier identifying a corresponding media object to which the respective geodata object relates;

wherein the header includes parsing information to describe how to parse the body as a streaming file.