Digital image selection in a surface computing device

• US 8,902,252 B2
• Filed: 09/21/2011
• Issued: 12/02/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 09/21/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Wrp IP Management, LLC
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Rakshit, Sarbajit K.
• Primary Examiner(s): Wu, Xiao
• Assistant Examiner(s): He, Yingchun
• Application Number:
  US13/238,073
• Publication Number:
  US 20130069983A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,168 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 345/629
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/5866 using information manually generated, e.g. tags, keywords, comments, manually generated location and time information

Abstract

A method of image selection in a surface computing device which includes: responsive to placing a device containing a plurality of images in proximity to a surface computing device, transferring the plurality of images to the surface computing device; creating tags from attributes of the plurality of images and grouping the tags together to form a tag cloud; responsive to selecting one tag as a primary tag, identifying tags related to the primary tag; displaying the primary tag and related tags as a series of geometric shapes in a primary tag diagram with each of the primary tag and related tags being represented by a geometric shape such that at least one geometric shape representing one of the related tags overlaps the geometric shape representing the primary tag to form an area of intersection representing an image; responsive to selecting the area of intersection, displaying the image.

Claims

1. A method of image selection in a surface computing device comprising:

responsive to placing a device containing a plurality of digital images in proximity to the surface computing device, transferring the plurality of images to the surface computing device;

creating tags from attributes of the plurality of images and grouping the tags together to form a word tag cloud without geometric shapes such that each tag has a font size indicative of the prevalence of the tag in the tag cloud;

displaying on the surface computing device the word tag cloud;

selecting one tag as a primary tag such that the primary tag has attributes common to a subset of the plurality of images;

responsive to the selecting the primary tag, identifying tags related to the primary tag such that the tags related to the primary tag (“

related tag”

) are the tags having attributes of the subset of the plurality of images that are not common to all of the subset of the plurality of images;

displaying on the surface computing device the primary tag and related tags as a series of geometric shapes in a primary tag diagram with each of the primary tag and related tags being represented by a geometric shape such that a first geometric shape representing one of the related tags overlaps the geometric shape representing the primary tag to form a first area of intersection representing at least one image and a second geometric shape representing another one of the related tags only overlaps the geometric shape representing the primary tag to form a second area of intersection representing at least one image wherein the first geometric shape and second geometric shape do not overlap; and

responsive to selecting at least one of the first area of intersection and the second area of intersection, displaying on the surface computing device the at least one image

corresponding to the selected at least one of the first area of intersection and the second area of intersection;

wherein the entire word tag cloud representing all of the plurality of images, primary tag diagram representing a subset of the plurality of images and at least one image are separately and simultaneously displayed on the surface computing device.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein a plurality of geometric shapes representing a plurality of the related tags overlap the geometric shape representing the primary tag.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein a size of the primary tag and a size of each of the related tags in the primary tag diagram are in proportion to the prevalence of the primary tag and related tags in the digital images.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the geometric shape representing the primary tag is larger than any other geometric shape.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein a plurality of geometric shapes representing a plurality of the related tags are positioned around the geometric shape representing the primary tag.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein attributes of the digital images are determined by at least one of performing an image analysis of the digital images, creating metadata of the digital images and creating descriptive tags of the digital images.

7. A method of image selection in a surface computing device having a plurality of digital images comprising:

creating tags from attributes of the plurality of images and grouping the tags together to form a word tag cloud without geometric shapes such that each tag has a font size indicative of the prevalence of the tag in the tag cloud;

displaying the word tag cloud;

selecting one tag as a primary tag such that the primary tag has attributes common to a subset of the plurality of images;

responsive to the selecting the primary tag, identifying tags related to the primary tag such that the tags related to the primary tag (“

related tag”

) are the tags having attributes of the subset of the plurality of images that are not common to all of the subset of the plurality of images;

displaying the primary tag and related tags as a series of geometric shapes in a primary tag diagram with each of the primary tag and related tags being represented by a geometric shape such that a first geometric shape representing one of the related tags overlaps the geometric shape representing the primary tag to form a first area of intersection representing at least one image and a second geometric shape representing another one of the related tags only overlaps the geometric shape representing the primary tag to form a second area of intersection representing at least one image wherein the first geometric shape and second geometric shape do not overlap; and

responsive to selecting at least one of the first area of intersection and the second area of intersection, displaying the at least one image corresponding to the selected at least one of the first area of intersection and the second area of intersection;

wherein the entire word tag cloud representing all of the plurality of images, primary tag diagram representing a subset of the plurality of images and at least one image are separately and simultaneously displayed;

wherein the processes of creating, displaying the word tag cloud, selecting, identifying, displaying the primary tag and related tags and displaying the at least one image are performed by a computer processor.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein a plurality of geometric shapes representing a plurality of the related tags overlap the geometric shape representing the primary tag.

9. The method of claim 7 wherein a size of the primary tag and a size of each of the related tags in the primary tag diagram are in proportion to the prevalence of the primary tag and related tags in the digital images.

10. The method of claim 7 wherein the geometric shape representing the primary tag is larger than any other geometric shape.

11. The method of claim 7 wherein a plurality of geometric shapes representing a plurality of the related tags are positioned around the geometric shape representing the primary tag.

12. The method of claim 7 wherein attributes of the digital images are determined by at least one of performing an image analysis of the digital images, creating metadata of the digital images and creating descriptive tags of the digital images.

13. A computer program product for image selection in a surface computing device, the computer program product comprising:

a tangible non-transitory computer readable storage medium having a computer readable program code embodied therewith, the computer readable program code comprising;

responsive to placing a device containing a plurality of digital images in proximity to the surface computing device, computer readable program code configured to transfer the plurality of images to the surface computing device;

computer readable program code configured to create tags from attributes of the plurality of images and grouping the tags together to form a word tag cloud without geometric shapes such that each tag has a font size indicative of the prevalence of the tag in the tag cloud;

computer readable program code configured to display on the surface computing device the tag cloud;

computer readable program code configured to select one tag as a primary tag such that the primary tag has attributes common to a subset of the plurality of images;

responsive to the computer readable program code configured to select the primary tag, computer readable program code configured to identify tags related to the primary tag such that the tags related to the primary tag (“

related tag”

) are the tags having attributes of the subset of the plurality of images that are not common to all of the subset of the plurality of images;

computer readable program code configured to display on the surface computing device the primary tag and related tags as a series of geometric shapes in a primary tag diagram with each of the primary tag and related tags being represented by a geometric shape such that a first geometric shape representing one of the related tags overlaps the geometric shape representing the primary tag to form a first area of intersection representing at least one image and a second geometric shape representing another one of the related tags only overlaps the geometric shape representing the primary tag to form a second area of intersection representing at least one image wherein the first geometric shape and second geometric shape do not overlap; and

responsive to selecting at least one of the first area of intersection and the second area of intersection, computer readable program code configured to display on the surface computing device the at least one image corresponding to the selected at least one of the first area of intersection and the second area of intersection;

wherein the entire word tag cloud representing all of the plurality of images, primary tag diagram representing a subset of the plurality of images and at least one image are separately and simultaneously displayed on the surface computing device.

14. The computer program product of claim 13 wherein attributes of the digital images are determined by at least one of computer readable program code configured to perform an images analysis of the digital images, computer readable program code configured to create metadata of the digital images and computer readable program code configured to create descriptive tags of the digital images.