Recognizing table of contents in an image sequence

• US 7,979,785 B1
• Filed: 10/04/2006
• Issued: 07/12/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 10/04/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Bartelma, Jeffrey, Wang, Xuefu, Mathes, Adam B.
• Primary Examiner(s): Hailu; Tadeese
• Assistant Examiner(s): Ulrich; Nicholas S
• Application Number:
  US11/544,005
• Time in Patent Office: 1,742 Days
• Field of Search: 715/251, 715/792, 715/766
• US Class Current: 715/200
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9577 Optimising the visualization of content, e.g. distillation of HTML documents

Abstract

A user interface (e.g., a browser window) includes a display area for displaying an image (e.g., a book page image). The image can be rescaled based on the dimensions of the display area, one or more attributes of the image and other factors. In some implementations, a sequence of images are searched for a table of contents. If a table of contents does not exist, one is created by searching the images for white space and/or other attributes that can be used to determined entries in the table of contents. The entries in the table of contents can be hypertext links.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

receiving a digital book having a sequence of pages, each page including a digital image;

searching the sequence of pages to determine whether a table of contents (TOC) exists in the sequence of pages, wherein searching the sequence of pages to determine whether the TOC exists includes;

searching the sequence of pages for one or more attributes indicative of a TOC, the attributes including a white space and at least one of a roman numeral, an ellipsis, or italicized text; and

determining that a digital image in the sequence of pages contains a TOC based on attributes resulting from the search, the determining including;

generating a score for the digital image, including evaluating a combination of the attributes resulting from the search; and

comparing the score to a reference;

upon determining that a TOC exists in the sequence of pages, tagging the digital image in the sequence of pages that contains the TOC, the tagging including;

creating one or more links for the TOC, where each link links to one of the sequence of pages of the digital book;

embedding the one or more links into the image containing the TOC; and

providing the image, including the embedded links, for display on a display device; and

upon determining that a TOC does not exist in the sequence of pages, creating a TOC.

2. The method of claim 1, where the links are hypertext links.

3. The method of claim 1, where each of the sequence of pages has a format other than a portable document format (PDF).

4. The method of claim 1, wherein creating the TOC includes:

determining one or more breaks in the sequence of pages based on results of the search;

creating one or more TOC entry points based on the determined one or more breaks; and

creating names for the one or more TOC entry points.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein determining that a digital image in the sequence of pages contains a TOC based on attributes resulting from the search includes determining that the digital image in the sequence of pages contains the TOC based on TOC attributes identified from within the digital image, the TOC attributes being attributes associated with TOCs.

6. A computer-readable medium having instructions stored thereon, which, when executed by at least one processor, causes the processor to perform operations comprising:

receiving a digital book having a sequence of pages, each page including a digital image;

searching the sequence of pages to determine whether a table of contents (TOC) exists in the sequence of pages, wherein searching the sequence of pages to determine whether the TOC exists includes;

searching the sequence of pages for one or more attributes indicative of a TOC, the attributes including a white space and at least one of a roman numeral, an ellipsis, or italicized text; and

determining that a digital image in the sequence of pages contains a TOC based on attributes resulting from the search, the determining including;

generating a score, including evaluating a combination of the attributes resulting from the search; and

comparing the score to a reference;

upon determining that a TOC exists in the sequence of pages, tagging the digital image in the sequence of pages that contains the TOC, the tagging including;

creating one or more links for the TOC, where each link links to one of the sequence of pages of the digital book;

embedding the one or more links into the image containing the TOC; and

providing the image, including the embedded links, for display on a display device; and

upon determining that a TOC does not exist in the sequence of pages, creating a TOC, including;

determining one or more breaks in the sequence of pages based on results of the search;

creating one or more TOC entry points based on the determined one or more breaks; and

creating names for the one or more TOC entry points.

7. The computer-readable medium of claim 6, where the links are hypertext links.

8. The computer-readable medium of claim 6, where each of the sequence of pages has a format other than a portable document format (PDF).

9. A method, comprising:

receiving a digital book having a sequence of pages, each page being a digital image;

for each page of the sequence of pages;

searching within the digital image of the page for one or more attributes indicative of a table of contents (TOC), the attributes including a white space and at least one of a roman numeral, an ellipsis, or italicized text;

determining whether the digital image of the page contains a TOC based on attributes resulting from the search with in the digital image, the determining including;

generating a score for the digital image, including evaluating a combination of the attributes resulting from the search within the digital image; and

comparing the score to a reference;

upon determining that a TOC exists in the digital image, tagging the digital image of the page, the tagging including;

creating one or more links for the TOC, each link linking to another page of the sequence of pages of the digital book; and

embedding the one or more links into the digital image; and

providing digital images that include the embedded links for display on a display device.