Active Image Tagging

• US 20110307542A1
• Filed: 06/10/2010
• Published: 12/15/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 06/10/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Wang, Meng, Hua, Xian-Sheng, Yang, Kuiyuan
• Granted Patent: US 8,825,744 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/203
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/5866 using information manually generated, e.g. tags, keywords, comments, manually generated location and time information

Abstract

Methods and systems for active image tagging are usable to build large datasets of tagged images by combining manual tagging by a user and automatic tagging by a computing device based on the manual tagging. Such tags may be used to effectively sort, organize, link, and search for images within large datasets of images. Additionally, the active image tagging may be configured to utilize a tagging game where multiple users manually tag images by playing a game on a computing device.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for active tagging, comprising:

performed by one or more processors executing computer-readable instructions;

selecting a file stored in a memory;

providing the file to a client device for manual tagging by a user of the client device;

receiving a tagged file from the client device;

storing the tagged file in the memory;

predicting a tag for another file based on the tagged file to create another tagged file in the memory; and

storing the other tagged file in the memory.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the file and the other file comprise image files.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein selecting a file stored in memory comprises selecting the file from a subset of data.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 3, iteratively performing the method until no untagged files exist in the data.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 3, iteratively performing the selecting a file, the providing the file, the receiving a tagged file, and the storing the tagged file until no untagged files exist in the subset.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 5, iteratively performing the predicting a tag and the storing the other tagged file when no untagged files exist in the subset and subsequent to iteratively performing the selecting a file, the providing the file, the receiving a tagged file, and the storing the tagged file.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 3, wherein selecting a file comprises selecting the file from the subset of files based on an informativeness measure.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 7, the informativeness measure comprising a citation measure defining a number of files neighboring the file, an ambiguity measure defining a similarity between a tag of each neighboring file and a tag of the file, and/or a diversity measure defining a difference between a tag of each file in a sample and the tag of the file.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein providing the file to a client device comprises providing the file and a text entry field associated with the file to the client device for displaying to the user.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein providing the file to a client device for manual tagging by the user comprises transmitting the file through a network interface to a client device connected to a network.

11. One or more computer-readable storage media, storing processor-executable instructions that, when executed on a processor, perform acts for active tagging, the acts comprising:

selecting a file stored in a memory;

providing the file to a file tagging game;

receiving a tagged file from the file tagging game;

storing the tagged file in the memory;

predicting a tag for another file in the memory based on the tagged file; and

storing the other tagged file in the memory.

12. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 11, wherein the file and the other file comprise image files.

13. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 11, iteratively performing the method until no untagged files exist in the memory.

14. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 11, further comprising hosting the file tagging game.

15. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 14, wherein hosting the file tagging game comprises:

providing the file to a plurality of client devices;

receiving a game-defined tag associated with the file from each of the plurality of client devices; and

storing the game-defined tag with the file in the memory.

16. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 15, wherein the plurality of client devices comprises a first client device and a second client device.

17. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 16, wherein storing the game-defined tag with the file in the memory comprises storing the game-defined tag with the file when the game-defined received from first client device matches the game-defined tag received from the second client device.

18. A system for iterative active image tagging comprising:

memory and a processor;

an image file selection module, stored in the memory and executable on the processor, configured to select an image file from a subset of data stored in the memory;

a manual image file tagging module, stored in the memory and executable on the processor, configured to provide the selected image file to a client device for a user to create a manually tagged image file to be stored in the memory;

an automatic image file tagging module, stored in the memory and executable on the processor, configured to provide automatic image tags to other image files in the subset of data stored in the memory based on the manually tagged image file; and

an iteration module, stored in the memory and executable on the processor, configured to iteratively activate the manual image file tagging module and the automatic image file tagging module until tagging is complete.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein the manual image file tagging module is further configured to provide the selected image file to a second client device for a second user to create the manually tagged image file to be stored in the memory, the first and second client devices being connected through a tagging game and the creation of the manually tagged image file being based on a result of the tagging game.

20. The system of claim 18, wherein the image file selection module is further configured to select the image file based on an informativeness measure.