User interface for viewing clusters of images

• US 9,396,214 B2
• Filed: 12/09/2009
• Issued: 07/19/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 01/23/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Jing, Feng, Zhang, Lei, Li, Ming Jing, Ma, Wei-Ying, Deng, Kefeng
• Primary Examiner(s): Duong, Hien
• Application Number:
  US12/634,662
• Publication Number:
  US 20100088647A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,414 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24578 using ranking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/51 Indexing; Data structures therefor; Storage structures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/54 Browsing; Visualisation therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/58 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0482 Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0485 Scrolling or panning

Abstract

A method and system for providing a user interface for presenting images of clusters of an image search result is provided. The user interface system displays the search result in a cluster/view form using a cluster panel and a view panel. The cluster panel contains a cluster area for each cluster. The view panel may contain thumbnails of images of the search result in a list view or a mix view. When a user selects a cluster area from the cluster panel, the user interface system displays a list view of thumbnails for that cluster in the view panel. The user interface system may display a thumbnail list near a cluster area of the cluster panel. The thumbnail list contains mini-thumbnails of the images of the selected cluster. The user interface system may also display a detail view of an image in the view panel when a user selects an image.

Claims

1. A method for presenting an image search result having clusters of images, the method comprising:

receiving an image search query;

identifying an image search result of images that are relevant to the image search query, each image having a relevance score indicating relevance of the image to the image search query, the images being organized into clusters;

displaying in a cluster panel a cluster indication of each cluster, the cluster indication for a cluster including thumbnails of multiple images from the cluster, the cluster indications being ordered based on relevance of the images in the cluster to the image search query;

displaying in a view panel thumbnails of images from multiple clusters of the image search result, the thumbnails of images displayed in the view panel being ordered based on relevance of the images to the image search query; and

when a user selects a cluster indication using a first selection, displaying adjacent to the selected cluster indication a thumbnail list containing mini-thumbnails of images only from the cluster corresponding to the selected cluster indication

wherein the cluster panel, the view panel, and the thumbnail list are displayed simultaneously.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein when in mix view, displaying in the view panel thumbnails of the images of the clusters in which the images of all the clusters are ordered into a combined ordering such that the most relevant image taken from each cluster are listed first in the combined ordering followed by a listing of the second most relevant image taken from each cluster in the combined ordering, wherein the other images of all the clusters are further listed in the combined ordering in an order based on relevance of each image within its cluster.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein when in list view,

when a user selects a cluster indication using second selection, displaying in the view panel thumbnails of images of the cluster corresponding to the selected cluster indication;

and

when a user selects a thumbnail of an image, displaying a detail view of that image in the view panel.

4. The method of claim 3 including displaying along with the detail view a thumbnail scroll list of the thumbnails of the view panel when the user selected the thumbnail.

5. A computer-readable storage medium containing computer-executable instructions for controlling a computer to present an image search result having clusters of images, by a method comprising:

receiving an image search query;

identifying an image search result of images that are relevant to the image search query, each image having a relevance score indicating relevance of the image to the image search query, the images being organized into clusters;

displaying in a cluster panel a cluster indication of each cluster, the cluster indication for each cluster including thumbnails of multiple images from that cluster, the cluster indications being ordered based on relevance of the images in the cluster to the image search query;

displaying in a view panel thumbnails of images of multiple clusters; and

when a user selects a thumbnail of an image of the view panel, displaying simultaneously in the view panel a detail view of the image corresponding to the selected thumbnail and a thumbnail scroll list of mini-thumbnails of images so that when the user uses the thumbnail scroll list to scroll to and then select a mini-thumbnail, the detail view of the image corresponding to the selected mini-thumbnail and the thumbnail scroll list are displayed simultaneously in the view panel.

6. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 5 wherein when in mix view, displaying in the view panel thumbnails of the images of the clusters in which the images of all the clusters are ordered into a combined ordering such that the most relevant image taken from each cluster are listed first in the combined ordering followed by a listing of the second most relevant image taken from each cluster in the combined ordering, wherein the other images of all the clusters are further listed in the combined ordering in an order based on relevance of each image within its cluster.

7. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 5 wherein when in list view and, when a user selects a cluster indication, displaying in the view panel thumbnails of images of the cluster corresponding to the selected cluster indication.

8. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 5 wherein when in list view,

when a user selects a cluster indication, displaying adjacent to the selected cluster indication a mini-thumbnail of images of the cluster corresponding to the selected cluster indication.

9. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 5 wherein the thumbnails of the view panel are ordered based on relevance of the images to the image search query.

10. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 5 wherein the mini-thumbnails correspond to images that are in the same cluster as the image corresponding to the selected thumbnail.

11. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 5 wherein the mini-thumbnails correspond to images displayed in the view panel when the user selected the thumbnail.

12. A computing device for presenting an image search result having clusters of images, the computing device comprising:

a store containing an image search result of images that are relevant to an image search query, each image having a relevance score indicating relevance of the image to the image search query, the images being organized into clusters;

a memory storing computer-executable instructions of

a component that displays in a cluster panel a cluster indication of each cluster, the cluster indication of a cluster including thumbnails of multiple images from the cluster, the cluster indications are ordered based on relevance of the images in the cluster to the image search query; and

a component that, when in mix view, displays in the view panel thumbnails of the images of the clusters in which the images of all the clusters are ordered in a combined ordering such that the most relevant image of each cluster is listed first in the combined ordering followed by a listing of the second most relevant image of each cluster; and

a processor that executes the computer-executable instruction stored in the memory.

13. The computing device of claim 12 including a component that, when in list view, displays in a view panel thumbnails of images of one cluster and when a user selects a cluster indication, displays in the view panel thumbnails of images of the cluster corresponding to the selected cluster indication.

14. The computing device of claim 12 including a component that, when in list view, displays in a view panel thumbnails of images of one cluster and when a user selects a cluster indication, displays adjacent to the selected cluster indication a mini-thumbnail of images of the cluster corresponding to the selected cluster indication.

15. The computing device of claim 12 including a component that, when in list view,

displays in a view panel thumbnails of images of one cluster;

when a user selects a cluster indication using a first selection, displays in the view panel thumbnails of images of the cluster corresponding to the selected cluster indication;

when a user selects a cluster indication using a second selection, displays adjacent to the selected cluster indication a mini-thumbnail of images of the cluster corresponding to the selected cluster indication; and

when a user selects a thumbnail of an image, displays detail view of that image in the view panel.

16. The computing device of claim 15 including a component that displays along with the detail view a thumbnail scroll list of the thumbnails of the view panel when the user selected the thumbnail.

17. The computing device of claim 12 wherein the cluster indications are ordered based on relevance of the images in the cluster to the image search query and the thumbnails of the view panel are ordered based on relevance of the images to the image search query.