METHOD, SYSTEM AND COMPUTER-READABLE RECORDING MEDIUM FOR WRITING NEW IMAGE AND ITS INFORMATION ONTO IMAGE DATABASE

• US 20120203759A1
• Filed: 11/17/2011
• Published: 08/09/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 02/07/2011
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Original Assignee: Olaworks, Inc.
• Inventors: Kim, Tae Hoon, Park, Min Je, Choi, Song Ki
• Application Number:
  US13/298,462
• Publication Number:
  US 20120203759A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/710
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/51 Indexing; Data structures therefor; Storage structures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/583 using metadata automatically derived from the content

Abstract

The present invention relates to a method for writing a newly recognized image. The method includes the steps of: (a) comparing pre-stored image in the image database with a queried image; (b) storing the queried image onto a database for unrecognized images if there is no image similar to the queried image; (c) grouping the images in the database for unrecognized images based on degrees of similarity thereamong; and (d) comparing, if a specific image and its tag information are inputted, the specific image with some images included in a specific set of images among the organized sets of the images, determining whether there is any image in the specific set of images which has a degree of similarity exceeding the pre-set value and allowing images determined to have degrees of similarity exceeding the pre-set value with the tag information to be automatically written onto the image database.

Claims

1. A method for writing a new image and its information onto an image database comprising the steps of:

(a) comparing pre-stored image in the image database with a queried image, if inputted, to search whether there are any images similar to the queried image in the image database;

(b) storing the queried image onto a database for unrecognized images if there is no image similar to the queried image as a search result;

(c) grouping the images in the database for unrecognized images based on degrees of similarity thereamong to organize sets of images; and

(d) comparing, if a specific image and its tag information are inputted from outside, the specific image with at least some images included in a specific set of images among the organized sets of the images, determining whether there is any image in the specific set of images which has a degree of similarity exceeding the pre-set threshold value and allowing at least one of the images determined to have degrees of similarity in excess of the pre-set threshold value with the tag information inputted from outside to be automatically written onto the image database.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein, at the step (d), the specific image and its tag information are received from a web crawler or a user terminal.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein, at the step (a), if the queried image is inputted, whether there is any image similar to the queried image or not is searched by comparing a normalized feature region of the pre-stored image in the image database with that of the queried image.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein, at the step (c), the degrees of similarity are determined by comparing features or feature regions of the images in the database for unrecognized images to thereby organize the set of images.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein, at the step (c), if the number of data included in the specific set of images or the number of data stored in the database for unrecognized images, exceeding the predetermined number, is collected, the step (d) is performed.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein, at the step (d), normalized feature regions of an image in the specific set of images are compared with those of the specific image;

at least one pair of feature regions which are considered to indicate a same object are retrieved from each of the images; and

the degree of similarity between the specific image and the image in the specific set of images is determined.

7. The method of claim 6 wherein, at the step (d), if at least two pairs of feature regions are retrieved from each of the images, relative location relationships between at least two feature regions of the image in the specific set of images and those between at least two feature regions of the specific image are compared by using a topology technology to determine whether the image in the specific set of images and the specific image are matched or not.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein, at the step (d), n-pieces of representative images, which stand for at least some images in the specific set of images, and their representative tag(s) is written onto the image database.

9. The method of claim 8 wherein m-pieces of sub images reflecting different viewpoints, different luminances or different time from the representative images are written together.

10. The method of claim 9 wherein, when the sub images are additionally written, their sub tag(s) is written with the sub images.

11. The method of claim 9 wherein the representative images and the sub images share at least one feature or feature region.

12. The method of claim 1 wherein at least one of the steps (a), (b), (c), and (d) is executed by a cloud computing server, which virtualizes multiple server devices sharing computer resources or server resources.

13. A system for writing a new image and its information onto an image database comprising:

a search part for comparing pre-stored image in the image database with a queried image, if inputted, to search whether there are any images similar to the queried image in the image database;

an unrecognized image storing part for storing the queried image onto a database for unrecognized images if there is no similar image to the queried image as a search result;

an unrecognized image set organizing part for grouping the images in the database for unrecognized images based on degrees of similarity thereamong to organize sets of images; and

a new image writing part for comparing, if a specific image and its tag information are inputted from outside, the specific image with at least some images included in a specific set of images among the organized sets of the images, determining whether there is any image in the specific set of images which has a degree of similarity exceeding the pre-set threshold value and allowing at least one of the images determined to have degrees of similarity in excess of the pre-set threshold value with the tag information inputted from outside to be automatically written onto the image database.

14. The system of claim 13 wherein the outside includes a crawler or a user terminal.

15. The system of claim 13 wherein, if the queried image is inputted, the search part searches whether there is any image similar to the queried image or not by comparing a normalized feature region of the pre-stored image in the image database with that of the queried image.

16. The system of claim 13 wherein the unrecognized image storing part determines the degrees of similarity by comparing features or feature regions of the images in the database for unrecognized images to thereby organize the set of images.

17. The system of claim 13 wherein, if the number of data of the specific set of images collected by the unrecognized image set organizing part or the number of data stored in the database for unrecognized images is in excess of the predetermined number, the new image writing part automatically writes at least some images with the inputted tag information on the image database.

18. The system of claim 13 wherein the new image writing part compares normalized feature regions of an image in the specific set of images with those of the specific image;

retrieves at least one pair of feature regions which are considered to indicate a same object from each of the images; and

determines the degree of similarity between the specific image and the image in the specific set of images.

19. The system of claim 18 wherein, if at least two pairs of feature regions are retrieved from each of the images, the new image writing part compares relative location relationships between at least two feature regions of the image in the specific set of images and those between at least two feature regions of the specific image by using a topology technology to determine whether the image in the specific set of images and the specific image are matched or not.

20. The system of claim 13 wherein the new image writing part writes n-pieces of representative images, which stand for at least some images in the specific set of images, and their representative tag(s) onto the image database.

21. The system of claim 20 wherein m-pieces of sub images reflecting different viewpoints, different luminances or different time from the representative images are written together.

22. The system of claim 21 wherein, when the sub images are additionally written, their sub tag(s) is additionally written with the sub images.

23. The system of claim 21 wherein the representative images and the sub images share at least one feature or feature region.

24. The system of claim 13 wherein the system is run by a cloud computing server that virtualizes multiple server devices sharing computing resources or server resources.

25. One or more computer-readable recording media having stored thereon a computer program that, when executed by one or more processors, causes the one or more processors to perform acts including:

comparing pre-stored image in the image database with a queried image, if inputted, to search whether there are any images similar to the queried image in the image database;

storing the queried image onto a database for unrecognized images if there is no image similar to the queried image as a search result;

grouping the images in the database for unrecognized images based on degrees of similarity thereamong to organize sets of images; and

comparing, if a specific image and its tag information are inputted from outside, the specific image with at least some images included in a specific set of images among the organized sets of the images, determining whether there is any image in the specific set of images which has a degree of similarity exceeding the pre-set threshold value and allowing at least one of the images determined to have degrees of similarity in excess of the pre-set threshold value with the tag information inputted from outside to be automatically written onto the image database.