Method of ordering and presenting images with smooth metadata transitions

• US 8,122,335 B2
• Filed: 12/03/2007
• Issued: 02/21/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 12/07/2006
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha (Canon Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha (Canon Inc.)
• Inventors: Duhig, Jonathan Anthony, Amielh, Myriam Elisa Lucie
• Primary Examiner(s): HUYNH, CONG LAC T
• Application Number:
  US11/949,220
• Publication Number:
  US 20080313214A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,541 Days
• Field of Search: 715/200, 715/255, 715/230
• US Class Current: 715/200
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/4393 Multimedia presentations, e.g. slide shows, multimedia albums
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/48 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually

Abstract

A method (100) of generating an ordered sequence of items from a collection of items, at least one of the items of the collection having at least two annotations, is disclosed. The method (100) selects one or more of the annotations and forms a first plurality of groups of items from the collection of items, each item in a group having one or more of the selected annotations in common. The method (100) selects a second plurality of the groups of items to form a sequence of groups, each group in the sequence comprising an item having at least one annotation in common with an item of at least one adjacent group of the sequence. The items are ordered within each of the selected groups of the sequence based on the selected annotations.

Claims

1. A method of generating an ordered sequence of items from a collection of items, at least one of the items of the collection being associated with a plurality of annotations, the method comprising the steps of:

selecting a first annotation for a first group of items and a second annotation for a second group of items;

receiving the first group of items from the collection of items, each item in the first group being associated with the first annotation;

receiving the second group of items to form a sequence of groups, each item in the second group being associated with the second annotation, and the second group being adjacent to the first group and comprising an item associated with the first annotation; and

ordering the items in the first group and the second group, respectively, and appending the first group to the second group such that

the item in the second group that is associated with the first annotation is between the items in the first group and the remaining items in the second group, and

the items in the second group are increasingly associated with the first annotation and decreasingly associated with the second annotation.

2. A method according to claim 1, wherein at least one of the following criteria is satisfied:

(A) the annotations each have an associated frequency score that is higher than a predetermined threshold,

(B) a predetermined number of annotations having highest frequency scores are selected,

(C) the annotations each match one or more predetermined category-specific conditions,

(D) the annotations are selected based on a priority value assigned to each annotation category, and

(E) the annotations are selected using a relevance score associated with each of the annotations.

3. A method according to claim 1, wherein at least one of the following criteria is satisfied:

(A) an item of the collection is assigned to the first group if any of the annotations of the item matches the first annotation, and

(B) an item of the collection is assigned to the first group if any of the annotations of the item is similar to the first annotation.

4. A method according to claim 1, wherein each of the items belongs to only one of the groups.

5. A method according to claim 1, wherein the items in each of the groups are ordered based on a relevance score associated with each of the items.

6. A method according to claim 1, further comprising the step of removing a predetermined number of items from the sequence of groups.

7. A method according to claim 1, further comprising at least one of the following steps:

(A) removing an item from the sequence of groups which has one or more annotations different from the annotations selected for adjacent groups;

(B) removing an item from the sequence of groups which has one or more annotations different from the annotations selected for adjacent groups with respect to a particular category;

(C) eliminating an item from the sequence of groups which has a particular unwanted annotation;

(D) eliminating a number of items from the sequence of groups based on the influence of the eliminated items on a resulting relevance distribution;

(E) eliminating an arbitrary number of items from the sequence of groups, each of the items having a relevance score most departing from a reference Gaussian distribution;

(F) removing repetitive items from the sequence of groups;

(G) eliminating poor-quality items from the sequence of groups; and

(H) removing the items from the sequence of groups such that maximize diversity of the sequence is achieved.

8. A method according to claim 1, wherein the ordered items in each of the groups are filtered by keeping a number of most representative items.

9. A method according to claim 1, wherein a graphical user interface (GUI) displays the sequence along with at least one of the selected annotations.

10. A method according to claim 1, wherein the receiving of the second group to form said sequence of groups is based on a selection of a path in a directed graph of semantic transitions.

11. An apparatus for generating an ordered sequence of items from a collection of items, at least one of the items of the collection being associated with a plurality of annotations, the apparatus comprising:

a memory; and

at least a processor functioning as;

selection mean for selecting a first annotation for a first group of items and a second annotation for a second group of items;

first receiving means for receiving the first group of items from the collection of items, each item in the first group being associated with the first annotation;

second receiving means for receiving the second group of items to form a sequence of groups, each item in the second group being associated with the second annotation, and the second group being adjacent to the first group and comprising an item associated with the first annotation; and

ordering means for ordering the items in the first group and the second group, respectively, and appending the first group to the second group such that

the item in the second group that is associated with the first annotation is adjacent to the first group of items, and

the items in the second group are increasingly associated with the first annotation and decreasingly associated with the second annotation.

12. A non-transitory computer-readable medium, having a program recorded thereon and configured to make a computer execute a method to generate an ordered sequence of items from a collection of items, at least one of the items of the collection being associated with a plurality of annotations, the method comprising the steps of:

selecting a first annotation for a first group of items and a second annotation for a second group of items;

receiving the first group of items from the collection of items, each item in the first group being associated with the first annotation;

receiving the second group of items to form a sequence of groups, each item in the second group being associated with the second annotation, and the second group being adjacent to the first group and comprising an item associated with the first annotation; and

ordering the items in the first group and the second group, respectively, and appending the first group to the second group such that

the item in the second group that is associated with the first annotation is adjacent to the first group of items, and

the items in the second group are increasingly associated with the first annotation and decreasingly associated with the second annotation.