Generation of fingerprints for multimedia content based on vectors and histograms

• US 9,020,964 B1
• Filed: 07/02/2007
• Issued: 04/28/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 04/20/2006
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Concert Technology Corporation
• Original Assignee: Pinehill Technology, LLC (Concert Technology Corporation)
• Inventors: Kaminski, Charles F. Jr.
• Primary Examiner(s): Fan, Shiow-Jy
• Application Number:
  US11/824,960
• Time in Patent Office: 2,857 Days
• Field of Search: 707/5, 707/6, 707/102, 707/E17.02, 707/999.005, 707/999.006, 707/999.102, 707/758, 707/915, 707/698, 707/705, 707/736
• US Class Current: 707/758
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/43 Querying
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 7/544 for evaluating functions by calculation G06F7/4824 takes precedence

Abstract

Surrogate heuristic identification is described, including receiving data associated with content, evaluating the content to identify one or more data structures associated with the content, processing the one or more data structures to generate a fingerprint, wherein the fingerprint is hashed to provide a reference identifier, and sending the reference identifier to a client file and a service file.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

receiving data that is representative of a plurality of characteristics of multimedia content;

determining one or more perceptible characteristics of the multimedia content;

determining at least one standardized portion of the multimedia content based on the determined one or more perceptible characteristics;

using the at least one standardized portion to generate a histogram represented as a coordinate system, wherein the histogram comprises at least a first point and a second point plotted in the coordinate system;

determining a vector between the first point and the second point of the histogram;

hashing a representation of the determined vector;

generating a fingerprint comprising the hashed representation of the vector and a unique reference identifier; and

providing the generated fingerprint to a client file and a service file.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the histogram comprises heuristic data.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the heuristic data comprises the vector.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the heuristic data comprises histogram data used to plot the first and second point in the coordinate system.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the vector further comprises a magnitude.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the vector further comprises an angle.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein hashing the representation of the determined vector further comprises using surrogate hashing to hash the representation of the vector.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the representation of the determined vector comprises a string that includes a magnitude of the determined vector and an angle of the determined vector.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining a maximum point on the histogram;

determining a minimum point on the histogram; and

wherein the first point corresponds to the maximum point, and the second point corresponds to the minimum point.

10. A method, comprising:

receiving data associated with a plurality of characteristics of multimedia content in a computer system;

determining one or more perceptible characteristics of the multimedia content;

determining at least one standardized portion of the multimedia content based on the determined one or more perceptible characteristics;

evaluating the at least one standardized portion of the multimedia content to identify one or more data structures associated with the at least one standardized portion of the multimedia content, the one or more data structures including a histogram represented as a coordinate system, wherein the histogram comprises multiple data points plotted in the coordinate system;

processing the histogram to obtain vectors between the data points of the histogram;

hashing the obtained vectors between the data points of the histogram;

generating a fingerprint comprising the hashed obtained vectors and a unique reference identifier; and

sending the generated fingerprint to a client file and a service file.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the received data is the at least one standardized portion of the multimedia content.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein the one or more data structures comprises a directory.

13. The method of claim 10, wherein the one or more data structures comprises a sub-directory.

14. The method of claim 10, wherein the one or more data structures comprises a location.

15. The method of claim 10, wherein the multimedia content comprises a file.

16. The method of claim 10, wherein the multimedia content comprises a data stream.

17. The method of claim 10, wherein hashing the obtained vectors includes hashing a string representation of each vector that includes a magnitude of the vector and an angle of the vector.

18. A computer program product embodied in a non-transitory computer readable medium and comprising computer instructions for:

receiving data that is representative of a plurality of characteristics of multimedia content

determining one or more perceptible characteristics of the multimedia content;

determining at least one standardized portion of the multimedia content based on the determined one or more perceptible characteristics;

using the at least one standardized portion to generate a histogram represented as a coordinate system, wherein the histogram is represented by multiple points plotted in the coordinate system;

analyzing the histogram to generate one of a vector, trough, and peak associated with the histogram;

hashing the generated one of the vector, trough, and peak associated with the histogram;

generating a fingerprint comprising the generated hashed one of the vector, trough, and peak and a unique reference identifier; and

providing the generated fingerprint to a client file and a service file.

19. The computer program product of claim 18, wherein the one or more perceptible characteristics comprises at least a portion of one of an image, video, and audio data.

20. The computer program product of claim 18, wherein the vector is calculated according to a maximum point of the histogram and a minimum point of the histogram.

21. A system, comprising:

at least a processor and memory configured to;

receive data associated with a plurality of characteristics of multimedia content;

determine one or more perceptible characteristics of the multimedia content;

determine at least one standardized portion of the multimedia content based on the determined one or more perceptible characteristics;

evaluate the at least one standardized portion of multimedia content to identify at least one data structure associated with the at least one standardized portion of multimedia content, the at least one data structure comprising a histogram;

process the histogram to generate a fingerprint by;

determine a vector from the histogram;

identify an angle and magnitude of the vector;

generate the fingerprint to comprise the angle of the vector concatenated with the magnitude of the vector and a unique reference identifier; and

send the generated fingerprint to a client file and a service file.

22. The system of claim 21, wherein the at least a processor and memory are configured to determine the vector from the histogram by:

determine a maximum point and a minimum point on the histogram; and

generate the vector according to the maximum point and the minimum point.

23. A method, comprising:

using at least a processor and memory for;

receiving data that is representative of a plurality of characteristics of multimedia content;

determining one or more perceptible characteristics of the multimedia content;

determining at least one standardized portion of the multimedia content based on the determined one or more perceptible characteristics;

generating plot points in a histogram based on the at least one standardized portion of the multimedia content;

determining a relationship between the plotted points;

hashing a representation of the relationship between the plotted points;

generating a fingerprint of the at least one standardized portion of the multimedia content based on the hashed representation of the relationship between the plotted points; and

using the generated fingerprint to one of identify the multimedia content and determine a similarity between the multimedia content and other multimedia content for identifying the other multimedia content as being similar.

24. The method of claim 23, wherein the one or more perceptible characteristics is at least one of a visual characteristic, aural characteristic, imagery characteristic, and multimedia characteristic of the at least a portion of the multimedia content.

25. The method of claim 23, wherein generating the plot points in the histogram comprises determining a number of occurrences of each of various levels of the one or more perceptible characteristics, wherein the numbers are plotted in the histogram versus the various levels.

26. The method of claim 23, wherein determining a relationship between the plotted points comprises determining one or more vectors between the plotted points.

27. The method of claim 26, wherein determining the one or more vectors comprises determining one of a magnitude and angle of the one or more vectors.

28. The method of claim 23, wherein determining a relationship between the plotted points comprises determining one of a trough and peak among the plotted points.

29. The method of claim 23 further comprising using the processor for using the generated fingerprint to identify the multimedia content from among a plurality of multimedia content residing in a network environment.

30. The method of claim 23 wherein using the generated fingerprint comprises comparing the generated fingerprint to another fingerprint of the other multimedia content for determining a similarity between the multimedia content and the other multimedia content.

31. A computer program product embodied in a non-transitory computer readable medium and comprising computer instructions for:

receiving data that is representative of a plurality of characteristics of multimedia content;

determining one or more perceptible characteristics of the multimedia content;

determining at least one standardized portion of the multimedia content based on the determined one or more perceptible characteristics;

generating plot points in a histogram based on the at least one standardized portion of the multimedia content;

determining a relationship between the plotted points;

hashing a representation of the relationship between the plotted points;

generating a fingerprint of the at least one standardized portion of the multimedia content based on the hashed representation of the relationship between the plotted points; and

using the generated fingerprint to one of identify the multimedia content and determine a similarity between the multimedia content and other multimedia content for identifying the other multimedia content as being similar.

32. A system, comprising:

at least a processor and memory configured to;

receive data that is representative of a plurality of characteristics of multimedia content;

determine one or more perceptible characteristics of the multimedia content;

determine at least one standardized portion of the multimedia content based on the determined one or more perceptible characteristics of the multimedia content;

generate plot points in a histogram based on the at least one standardized portion of the multimedia content;

determine a relationship between the plotted points;

hash a representation of the relationship between the plotted points;

generate a fingerprint of the at least one standardized portion of the multimedia content based on the hashed representation of the relationship between the plotted points; and

use the generated fingerprint to one of identify the multimedia content and determine a similarity between the multimedia content and other multimedia content for identifying the other multimedia content as being similar.