Selecting photographs for a destination

• US 9,076,079 B1
• Filed: 03/29/2013
• Issued: 07/07/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 03/15/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: James, Barnaby John, Kolluri, Bala Venkata Sai Ravi Krishna
• Primary Examiner(s): Werner, Brian P
• Application Number:
  US13/853,997
• Time in Patent Office: 830 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3679 Retrieval, searching and output of POI information, e.g. hotels, restaurants, shops, filling stations, parking facilities G01C21/3611 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/29 Geographical information databases
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/583 using metadata automatically derived from the content
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/95 Retrieval from the web
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 18/24 Classification techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0625 Directed, with specific intent or strategy
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0627 using item specifications
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/14 Travel agencies
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 11/60 Editing figures and text; Combining figures or text
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 17/05 Geographic models
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/11 Region-based segmentation

Abstract

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for computerized travel services. One of the methods includes identifying points of interest associated with a destination by querying a geographic data store; for each of the points of interest: identifying photographs using an index of photographs, the photographs being identified from the index as photographs geographically related to the point of interest, determining for each of the photographs a relevancy score based at least in part on selection success data of the photograph for image queries referring to the point of interest and references to the point of interest in documents associated with the photograph, and selecting a selected point of interest photograph from the photographs based at least in part on a respective visual quality score and the respective relevancy scores; and selecting a selected destination photograph from the selected point of interest photographs.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

receiving data indicative of a city;

identifying, by operation of a system comprising one or more computers, a plurality of points of interest associated with the city by querying a geographic data store that includes data mapping cities to points of interest;

for each of the plurality of points of interest;

identifying, by operation of the system, a plurality of photographs using an index of photographs, the plurality of photographs being identified from the index as photographs geographically related to the point of interest,

determining for each of the plurality of photographs, by operation of the system, a relevancy score based at least in part on selection success data of the photograph for image queries referring to the point of interest and references to the point of interest in documents associated with the photograph, and

selecting, by operation of the system, a selected point of interest photograph from the plurality of photographs based at least in part on a respective visual quality score and the respective relevancy scores, the visual quality score representing a degree of visual quality of the respective photographs; and

selecting, by operation of the system, a selected city photograph from the selected point of interest photographs.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining for each of the plurality of points of interest, by operation of the system, a popularity score based at least in part on a count of travel related documents that refer to point of interest; and

wherein the selected city photograph is selected from the selected point of interest photographs based at least in part on the respective popularity scores.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining for each of the plurality of points of interest, by operation of the system, a popularity score based at least in part on a count of travel related queries that refer to the point of interest; and

wherein the selected city photograph is selected from the selected point of interest photographs based at least in part on the respective popularity scores.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining for each of the plurality of points of interest, by operation of the system, a popularity score based at least in part on a count of the respective plurality of photographs; and

wherein the selected city photograph is selected from the selected point of interest photographs based at least in part on the respective popularity scores.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the selection success data of the photograph is for image queries that refer to an activity or the point of interest and the references in documents associated with the photograph are to the point of interest or the activity.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein each of the plurality of photographs is associated with a respective geographic location that is within a threshold distance of the point of interest.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the selection success data comprises click-through data or explicit feedback data.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein each of the image queries referring to the point of interest includes a term or terms associated with the point of interest.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein the documents comprise web pages, pages in a social network, or pages in a photo sharing service.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein the respective score of visual quality is based at least in part on at least one of an exposure rating, a color or saturation rating, a clarity rating, a photographer rating, a camera rating, or a user feedback rating.

11. A system comprising:

one or more computers and one or more storage devices storing instructions that are operable, when executed by the one or more computers, to cause the one or more computers to perform operations comprising;

receiving data indicative of a city;

identifying, by operation of a system comprising one or more computers, a plurality of points of interest associated with the city by querying a geographic data store that includes data mapping cities to points of interest;

for each of the plurality of points of interest;

identifying, by operation of the system, a plurality of photographs using an index of photographs, the plurality of photographs being identified from the index as photographs geographically related to the point of interest,

determining for each of the plurality of photographs, by operation of the system, a relevancy score based at least in part on selection success data of the photograph for image queries referring to the point of interest and references to the point of interest in documents associated with the photograph, and

selecting, by operation of the system, a selected point of interest photograph from the plurality of photographs based at least in part on a respective visual quality score and the respective relevancy scores, the visual quality score representing a degree of visual quality of the respective photographs; and

selecting, by operation of the system, a selected city photograph from the selected point of interest photographs.

12. The system of claim 11, further comprising:

determining for each of the plurality of points of interest, by operation of the system, a popularity score based at least in part on a count of travel related documents that refer to point of interest; and

wherein the selected city photograph is selected from the selected point of interest photographs based at least in part on the respective popularity scores.

13. The system of claim 11, further comprising:

determining for each of the plurality of points of interest, by operation of the system, a popularity score based at least in part on a count of travel related queries that refer to the point of interest; and

wherein the selected city photograph is selected from the selected point of interest photographs based at least in part on the respective popularity scores.

14. The system of claim 11, further comprising:

determining for each of the plurality of points of interest, by operation of the system, a popularity score based at least in part on a count of the respective plurality of photographs; and

wherein the selected city photograph is selected from the selected point of interest photographs based at least in part on the respective popularity scores.

15. Them system of claim 11 wherein the plurality of photographs are identified based at least in part on photograph clustering using non-geographic and geographic metadata.

16. The system of claim 11 wherein each of the plurality of photographs is associated with a respective geographic location that is within a threshold distance of the point of interest.

17. The system of claim 11 wherein the selection success data comprises click-through data or explicit feedback data.

18. The system of claim 11 wherein each of the image queries referring to the point of interest includes a term or terms associated with the point of interest.

19. The system of claim 11 wherein the documents comprise web pages, pages in a social network, or pages in a photo sharing service.

20. A non-volatile computer storage medium encoded with instructions that, when executed by one or more computers, cause the one or more computers to perform operations comprising:

receiving data indicative of a city;

identifying, by operation of a system comprising one or more computers, a plurality of points of interest associated with the city by querying a geographic data store that includes data mapping cities to points of interest;

for each of the plurality of points of interest;

identifying, by operation of the system, a plurality of photographs using an index of photographs, the plurality of photographs being identified from the index as photographs geographically related to the point of interest,

determining for each of the plurality of photographs, by operation of the system, a relevancy score based at least in part on selection success data of the photograph for image queries referring to the point of interest and references to the point of interest in documents associated with the photograph, and

selecting, by operation of the system, a selected point of interest photograph from the plurality of photographs based at least in part on a respective visual quality score and the respective relevancy scores, the visual quality score representing a degree of visual quality of the respective photographs; and

selecting, by operation of the system, a selected city photograph from the selected point of interest photographs.