Interactive color palettes for color-aware search

• US 8,587,604 B1
• Filed: 02/03/2010
• Issued: 11/19/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 02/03/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Inventors: Singh, Sachin B., Goldstein, Michel, Meister, Carl N., Couvrette, David Charles, Tseng, Walter Manching, Hotchkies, Blair L., Williams, Sarah E., Saifullah, Sikandar, Forde, Sean P., Nilles, John M., Patrikios, Jason P., Mills, Brent Robert, Indrei, Alexandru I., Jaye, Paul Daniel, Kanter, Max L., Parshall, Daniel R.
• Primary Examiner(s): Sajous, Wesner
• Application Number:
  US12/699,750
• Time in Patent Office: 1,385 Days
• Field of Search: 345/418, 345/581, 345589-593, 345/597, 345600-601, 345/606, 345/611, 345/612, 345/619, 345/501, 345/522, 345548-549, 345/690, 348/179, 348/498, 348/502, 348519-520, 348/552, 348/557, 348/577, 348/599, 348/630, 348716-717, 358/448, 358518-519, 358/523, 358/525, 382162-167, 382/228, 382/251, 382/254, 382/260, 382/269, 382/266, 382/274, 382/276, 382/300, 382/305, 707705-708, 707/758, 707/763, 707769-771, 707/773
• US Class Current: 345/589
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/5838 using colour
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4828 for searching program descriptors retrieval of video data G06F16/739

Abstract

Effective color-aware search of a collection of content associated with one or more images is enabled. Content and/or its associated images may be automatically associated with representative palette colors in a suite of color palettes. Color palettes may be of a variety of types and have a hierarchical structure in which lower levels enable increasingly subtle distinctions between shades of color. Color palette hierarchies may be effectively presented, and appropriate portions emphasized based on associated search result sets. Search result sets may be refined and/or reordered in accordance with color palette selections and/or representative confidences of color palette selections for items at least referenced therein.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for searching a collection of content associated with a plurality of images, comprising:

under control of one or more computer systems configured with executable instructions,

identifying a color palette hierarchy associated with a search of the collection of content, the color palette hierarchy comprising palette colors that are representative of colors in the associated images;

providing for display an interactive presentation of the color palette hierarchy in which, at least;

a first portion of the color palette hierarchy is initially visible;

responsive to user interaction with a palette color of the first portion, a second portion of the color palette hierarchy beneath the palette color becomes visible; and

each visible portion of the color palette hierarchy comprises less than a threshold number of palette colors;

responsive to user interaction with the interactive presentation selecting at least one visible palette color, providing search results including at least a reference to content associated with at least some of the plurality of images having colors for which the selected at least one visible palette color is representative.

2. A computer-implemented method according to claim 1, wherein at least some of the plurality of images comprise an image of a physical object.

3. A computer-implemented method according to claim 1, wherein the color palette hierarchy comprises a plurality of palette colors arranged in a plurality of levels.

4. A computer-implemented method according to claim 3, wherein the first portion comprises palette colors in a first level of the color palette hierarchy and the second portion comprises palette colors in a second level of the color palette hierarchy.

5. A computer-implemented method according to claim 1, wherein the user interaction with the palette color comprises selection of the palette color by a user.

6. A computer-implemented method for color-aware search, comprising:

under control of one or more computer systems configured with executable instructions,

receiving a request specifying a search of a plurality of items associated with a plurality of images;

providing for display an interactive presentation of a color palette hierarchy, the color palette hierarchy comprising palette colors that are representative of colors in the plurality of images, wherein;

a first portion of the color palette hierarchy is initially visible;

responsive to user interaction with a palette color of the first portion, a second portion of the color palette hierarchy beneath the palette color becomes visible; and

each visible portion of the color palette hierarchy comprises less than a threshold number of palette colors;

receiving a selection of at least one palette color responsive to user interaction with the interactive presentation; and

providing search results based at least in part on the selected at least one palette color.

7. A computer-implemented method according to claim 6, wherein colors associated with the plurality of items are mappable to palette colors in the palette hierarchy.

8. A computer-implemented method according to claim 6, wherein said at least one attribute of the search comprises a category of items associated with the search.

9. A computer-implemented method according to claim 6, wherein said at least one attribute of the search comprises an attribute of a user conducting the search.

10. A computer-implemented method according to claim 6, wherein said at least one attribute of the search comprises a temporal attribute of the search.

11. A computer-implemented method for color-aware search, comprising:

under control of one or more computer systems configured with executable instructions,

identifying a color palette hierarchy associated with a search of a collection of content, the color palette hierarchy comprising palette colors that are representative of colors in images associated with the content;

displaying an interactive presentation of the color palette hierarchy, wherein;

a first portion of the color palette hierarchy is initially visible;

a second portion of the color palette hierarchy becomes visible; and

each visible portion of the color palette hierarchy comprises less than a threshold number of palette colors;

receiving a specification of at least one palette color responsive to user interaction with the interactive presentation; and

providing search results based at least in part on the specified at least one palette color.

12. A computer-implemented method according to claim 11, wherein said at least one distinguished palette color is representative of at least one item at least referenced by a result set of the search.

13. A computer-implemented method according to claim 11, wherein the representation is specified at least in part by a presentation specification language.

14. A computer-implemented method according to claim 13, wherein the representation is specified at least in part by a hypertext markup language.

15. A computer-implemented method according to claim 11, wherein emphasizing said at least one distinguished palette color comprises visually distinguishing said at least one distinguished palette color among the at least one palette colors.

16. A computerized system for color-aware search, comprising:

one or more computer-readable media collectively facilitating storage of at least a color palette hierarchy, the color palette hierarchy comprising a plurality of palette colors arranged in a plurality of levels; and

a search module configured to, at least;

provide an interactive presentation of the color palette hierarchy, the interactive presentation configured at least to be responsive to user interaction with a palette color of a first portion of the color palette hierarchy and to make visible a second portion of the color palette hierarchy, the second portion on a level beneath the palette color in the color palette hierarchy;

receive a specification of at least one palette color associated with the user interaction; and

provide search results based at least in part on the specified at least one palette color.

17. A computerized system according to claim 16, wherein each palette color has less than a threshold number of child palette colors in the color palette hierarchy.

18. A computerized system according to claim 16, wherein the second portion of the color palette hierarchy comprises palette colors selected from levels of the color palette hierarchy that are less than a threshold number of levels beneath at least one level of the first portion of the color palette hierarchy.

19. A computerized system according to claim 16, wherein providing the interactive presentation of the color palette hierarchy comprises providing a specification of the interactive presentation with a presentation specification language.

20. A computerized system according to claim 16, wherein palette colors in the second portion of the color palette hierarchy are relatively close to the palette color of the first portion in a color space.

21. One or more computer-readable media having collectively thereon computer-executable instructions that configure one or more computers to collectively, at least:

provide a color palette for presentation;

responsive to user interaction with a presentation of the color palette selecting at least a palette color of the color palette, receive a request for a search at least specifying the palette color;

determine a result set for the search based at least in part on at least one representative confidence score of the palette color for content at least referenced by the result set, wherein determining the result set comprises ordering the result set based at least in part on the representative confidences, and wherein said content associated with lower representative confidences are ordered higher in the result set; and

provide at least a portion of the result set for presentation.

22. One or more computer-readable media according to claim 21, wherein providing said at least a portion of the result set for presentation comprises providing a specification of a result set presentation with a presentation specification language.

23. One or more computer-readable media according to claim 21, wherein the result set comprises at least references to content associated with images having colors relatively close to the palette color in a color space.