SYSTEM AND METHOD OF INDICATING TRANSITION BETWEEN STREET LEVEL IMAGES

• US 20100215250A1
• Filed: 02/24/2009
• Published: 08/26/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 02/24/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Zhu, Jiajun
• Granted Patent: US 9,454,847 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/154
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/29 Geographical information databases
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/5866 using information manually generated, e.g. tags, keywords, comments, manually generated location and time information
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 15/04 Texture mapping
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 15/20 Perspective computation
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 17/05 Geographic models
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 19/00 Manipulating 3D models or images for computer graphics
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 19/003 Navigation within 3D models or images
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2200/04 involving 3D image data

Abstract

A system and method of displaying transitions between street level images is provided. In one aspect, the system and method creates a plurality of polygons that are both textured with images from a 2D street level image and associated with 3D positions, where the 3D positions correspond with the 3D positions of the objects contained in the image. These polygons, in turn, are rendered from different perspectives to convey the appearance of moving among the objects contained in the original image.

Claims

1. A method of displaying an image comprising:

receiving a first image representing a geographic object captured by a camera at a first location;

receiving object position data associated with the geographic location of the geographic object;

determining, with a processor, a plurality of regions based on the first image and the object position data, each region being associated with a portion of the first image and a geographic location;

generating, with a processor, a second image representing the geographic object from the perspective of a second location, the second image comprising a plurality of the regions displayed from the perspective of the second location; and

displaying, on an electronic display, the second image.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the first image is a street level image.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the object position data represents the distance between the geographic location of the surface of the object facing the camera and the first location.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the object position data represents the geographic location of a portion of a surface of the geographic object in three-dimensional space.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein the object position data represents the latitude, longitude and altitude of the portion of the surface.

6. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

generating, with a processor, a third image representing the geographic object from the perspective of a third location, the third image comprising a plurality of the regions displayed from the perspective of the second location; and

displaying, on the electronic display, the third image after the second image is displayed.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the first image comprises a plurality of pixels and wherein the object position data contains a value for each pixel, the value representing the location of the portion of the object illustrated at the pixel.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein the value corresponds with distance between the portion of the object and the first location.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein the regions comprise polygons textured with portions of the first image.

10. A method of displaying a street level image comprising:

receiving a first street level image of a geographic object captured by a camera at a first position,

receiving depth data representing the position of a surface of the geographic object with respect to the first position,

generating, with a processor, a plurality of polygons where the vertices of the polygons are associated with positions, the positions of the vertices being determined based on the depth data, and where each polygon is further associated with a portion of the first street level image, and

displaying, on an electronic display, a second street level image of the geographic object such that the street level image appears as if it were captured by a camera at the second position, the second street level image being calculated by a processor based on;

a second position;

a plurality of the polygons; and

the position of the polygons relative to the second position.

11. The method of claim 10 wherein the depth data represents the distance between portions of the geographic object and the first position.

12. The method of claim 10 wherein the second position is determined based on a user'"'"'s selection of a portion of the first image.

13. A system comprising:

a user input device;

a memory storing instructions, two-dimensional image data representing a street level image of geographic objects captured by a camera, and location data representing the three-dimensional location of the surfaces of the objects that are facing the camera;

a processor in communication with the user input device so as to process information received from the user input device in accordance with the instructions; and

a display in communication with, and displaying information received from, the processor;

the instructions comprising;

receiving an identification of a second location and a second orientation;

associating portions of the image data with different regions;

determining surface location data for a plurality of points associated with each region, where the surface location data of a point represents the three-dimensional location of the portion of the surface of the object that is displayed in the image at the point, and where the surface location data is based on the location data;

rendering a two-dimensional second image based on the image data of the regions, the surface location data for the regions, the second location and the second orientation; and

displaying the second image on the display.

14. The system of claim 13 wherein the user input device is a mouse.

15. The system of claim 14 further comprising a network, a server storing the image and location data, and wherein the memory receives the image and data from the server and over the network.

16. A system of displaying images comprising:

a first computer at a first node of a network, the first computer comprising a first memory storing a first set of instructions, a first processor that processes data in accordance with the first set of instructions, and an electronic display,

a second computer at a second node of a network, the second computer comprising a second memory storing a second set of instructions and a second processor that processes data in accordance with the second set of instructions,

said second set of instructions comprising receiving a location from the first computer, transmitting a first image of geographic objects captured by a camera to the first computer, and transmitting position data defining the geographic location of the surfaces of the object represented in the image;

said first set of instructions comprising (a) receiving the first image, (b) receiving the position data, (c) receiving a second location, (d) for a plurality of portions of the image, associating each image portion with an image portion location, where the image portion location is calculated based on at least one geographic location of a surface represented by the portion, (e) generating a second image from the image portions, where the position of each image portion within the second image is calculated based on the appearance of the image portion when viewed from the perceptive of the second location, and (f) displaying the second image.

17. A method of providing a transition between street level images comprising:

receiving a first street level image of geographic objects taken from a first geographic location;

receiving object position data representing the geographic location of surfaces of the objects;

requesting a second street level image, the second street level image being associated with a second geographic location;

determining, with a processor, a plurality of polygons where each vertex of the polygon is associated with both a pixel position and a geographic location, the pixel position representing the position of the vertex relative to the first image, the geographic location of each vertex representing the geographic location of the portion of the object that is displayed at the pixel position of the vertex;

determining a first intermediate geographic location based on the first geographic location and the second geographic location;

determining, with a processor, a first intermediate image representing at least one of the geographic objects from the perspective of the first intermediate geographic location, the first intermediate image comprising a plurality of the polygons positioned within the first intermediate image based on the geographic location of each polygon'"'"'s vertices relative to the first intermediate geographic location; and

displaying the first intermediate image on a display.

18. The method of claim 17 further comprising:

determining a second intermediate geographic location that is closer to the second geographic location than the first intermediate location;

determining, with a processor, a second intermediate image representing at least one of the geographic objects from the perspective of the second intermediate geographic location, the second intermediate image comprising a plurality of the polygons positioned within the second intermediate image based on the geographic location of each polygon'"'"'s vertices relative to the second intermediate geographic location;

displaying the second intermediate image on the display after displaying first intermediate image.

19. The method of claim 18 further comprising:

determining a sequence of additional geographic locations, each additional geographic location being closer to the second geographic location than the prior additional geographic location in the sequence;

determining, with a processor, a sequence of additional intermediate images representing at least one of the geographic objects from the perspective of each additional geographic location, the additional intermediate images comprising a plurality of the polygons positioned within each additional intermediate image based on the geographic location of each polygon'"'"'s vertices relative to the additional intermediate image'"'"'s associated additional intermediate geographic location;

displaying each additional intermediate image in sequence on the display.

20. The method of claim 19 wherein the sequence of images appears as an animation travelling through the scene of geographic objects represented in the first street level image.

21. The method of claim 17 wherein the polygons comprise triangles.

22. The method of claim 17 wherein the polygons do not overlap when positioned within the first street level image.