Method and system for browsing large digital multimedia object collections

• US 20060090141A1
• Filed: 09/08/2005
• Published: 04/27/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 05/23/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Monument Peak Ventures, LLC (Dominion Harbor Enterprises, LLC)
• Original Assignee: Eastman Kodak Company
• Inventors: Loui, Alexander C., Marino, Frank
• Granted Patent: US 8,028,249 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/764
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/447 Temporal browsing, e.g. timeline
• 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

Abstract

A display system and method for operating a display and a collection of digital multimedia objects are provided. A first selection set of predefined organizational metaphors is presented and a selection of a first organizational metaphor from the first selection set is received. A second selection set of predefined organizational metaphors other than the first selected organizational metaphor is presented and a selection of a second organizational metaphor from the second selection set is received. A result is presented on the display having one of at least two group icons, each group icon indicating a group of digital multimedia objects chosen from the collection according to rules associated with the selected organizational metaphors and the content of the digital multimedia objects or any metadata associated with the digital multimedia objects. Wherein the group of digital multimedia objects indicated by each group icon are chosen according to result presentation rules.

Claims

1. A method for operating a display associated with a user interface and a collection of digital multimedia objects, the method comprising the steps of:

presenting a first selection set of predefined organizational metaphors;

receiving a selection of a first organizational metaphor from the first selection set of predefined organizational metaphors;

presenting a second selection set of predefined organizational metaphors other than the first selected organizational metaphor;

receiving a selection of a second organizational metaphor from the second selection set of predefined organizational metaphors; and

presenting a result on the display having one of at least two group icons, each group icon indicating a group of digital multimedia objects chosen from the collection according to rules associated with the selected organizational metaphors and the content of the digital multimedia objects or any metadata associated with the digital multimedia objects;

wherein the group of digital multimedia objects indicated by each group icon are chosen according to result presentation rules.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the second selection set of the predefined organizational metaphors is determined based upon the first selected organizational metaphor.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein an indication of the first selected organizational metaphor, and an indication of the second selected organizational metaphor and one of the group icons are presented on separate portions of the display at the same time.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the digital multimedia objects include still images, graphics, text, video images, sequences of images, streams of image information, and associated audio.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the organizational metaphors comprise at least one of a chronological metaphor, a geographic metaphor, an image subject metaphor, a categorical metaphor, or and event metaphor, a person metaphor, or an image content metaphor.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the result presentation rules are based at least in part upon analysis of the number of selected data files.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the result presentation rules are based at least in part upon at least one of the selected organizational metaphors.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the result presentation rules wherein the group icons are activatable to cause the presentation of image content from at least one of the digital multimedia objects in the image group.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the display of image content comprises a display of thumbnail representation(s) of image content from each digital multimedia object, each thumbnail, and wherein each thumbnail is being activatable to cause presentation of the image content depicted by the thumbnail on a scale that is larger than the scale of the image content on the thumbnail.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of presenting an indication path on a portion of the display with path icons indicating each selected organizational metaphor made in a sequence of selections of organizational metaphors, with each path icon being selectable to return the selection process to a different selection level.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of presenting at least one of the selected sorting metaphors including an event metaphor causing the result to include a histogram timeline to be presented representing a number of events

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the second graphical metaphor comprises a timeline having one axis representing a chronological continuum with event icons presented in chronological order thereon.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein a group icon is activatable to cause the presentation of at least two sub-group icons, each sub-group icon indicating at least a portion of the digital multimedia objects indicated by the group icon.

14. A method for presenting a set of digital multimedia objects in an organized manner on a portable display screen, the method comprising the steps of:

receiving a selection of a first organizational metaphor from a presented set of predefined organizational metaphors;

receiving a selection of a second organizational metaphor from a presented set of predefined organizational metaphors other than the first organizational metaphors;

organizing a number of the set of digital multimedia objects into at least two groups according to result rules associated with the selected organizational metaphors; and

providing iconic representations of the groups,

wherein the result rules include rules for selecting digital multimedia objects from the set of digital multimedia objects, rules for selecting the number of the groups, and rules for associating digital multimedia objects with particular iconic representations.

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising the steps of sensing a selection of one of the iconic representations;

and presenting at least one image that is based upon the image content that is associated with at least one of the digital multimedia objects in the selected group icon.

16. An image display device comprising:

a display;

a source of digital multimedia objects;

a user input device adapted to receive an input from a user and to convert the input into a selection signal indicative of user input actions made by the user; and

a processing unit operatively connected to the display, the source of digital multimedia objects and the user input device said processing unit being adapted to cause the display to present a first selection set of predefined organizational metaphors, to receive a selection of one of the first selection set of organizational metaphors from the user input device, to cause the display to present a second selection set of predefined organizational metaphors other than the first selected organizational metaphor and to receive a selection of one of the second set of predefined organizational metaphors;

said processing unit further being adapted to cause a result to be presented on the display, with the result having one of at least two group icons, each group icon indicating a group of digital multimedia objects selected from the collection according to rules associated with the selected organizational metaphors and the content of the digital multimedia objects or any metadata associated with the image metadata files;

wherein the group of digital multimedia objects indicated by each group icon is selected according to result presentation rules.

17. The image display device of claim 16, wherein the result presentation rules include rules for selecting digital multimedia objects from the set of digital multimedia objects, rules for selecting the number of the groups, and rules for associating digital multimedia objects with particular group icons.

18. The image display device of claim 16, wherein at least one of the selected organizational metaphors includes an event metaphor causing the display of a histogram timeline of group icons.

19. The image display device of claim 16, wherein the source of digital multimedia objects includes a memory, a magnetic disk, a magnetic tape, an optical disk, a semiconductor memory, or a communication circuit adapted to exchange data files with an image server that is separated from the image display device.

20. The image display device of claim 16, wherein at least one of the group icons and image content is presented with simulated depth dimensionality.

21. The image display device of claim 16, wherein the user interface and processing unit are adapted and enable the user to select a limited set of more than one group icon and to present information related to the digital multimedia objects of each group icon.