AUTOMATICALLY ORGANIZING IMAGES

• US 20150363640A1
• Filed: 06/13/2014
• Published: 12/17/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 06/13/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Meyer, Cayden
• Granted Patent: US 10,078,781 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/583 using metadata automatically derived from the content
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 30/413 Classification of content, e.g. text, photographs or tables

Abstract

A method includes obtaining a plurality of images, including geolocation information and time information for each image. The method also includes identifying a group of related images from the plurality of images from a common geographical area and a common time period based on the geolocation information and the time information for each of the plurality of images, and identifying an event that occurred within the common time period and within the common geographical area by searching a repository of event information. The method also includes storing the group of related images in an image collection, and assigning a title to the image collection, wherein the title is based at least in part on a title of the event.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

obtaining a plurality of images;

obtaining, for each image from the plurality of images, geolocation information;

obtaining, for each image from the plurality of images, time information;

identifying, by one or more computing devices, a group of related images from the plurality of images from a common geographical area and a common time period based on the geolocation information and the time information for each of the plurality of images;

identifying, by the one or more computing devices, an event that occurred within the common time period and within the common geographical area by searching a repository of event information;

storing, by the one or more computing devices, the group of related images in an image collection; and

assigning, by the one or more computing devices, a title to the image collection, wherein the title is based at least in part on a title of the event.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the repository of event information includes information obtained from a publicly available source.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the repository of event information includes non-public information that is associated with a user.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein each of the plurality of images is associated with a user and the repository of event information includes calendar data associated with the user.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein each of the plurality of images is associated with a user and the repository of event information includes information obtained from electronic mail messages that are associated with the user.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein each of the plurality of images is stored at a server-based storage system and are associated with an account that is associated with a user.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein each of the plurality of images is associated with a single image capture device.

8. A method, comprising:

obtaining a plurality of images;

identifying a group of related images from the plurality of images;

extracting visible features from at least some images from the plurality of images;

identifying, by one or more computing devices, one or more text-based feature labels for at least some of the extracted visible features by comparing the extracted visible features to a repository of images that include indexed features;

storing, by the one or more computing devices, the group of related images in an image collection; and

assigning, by the one or more computing devices, a title to the image collection, wherein the title is based at least in part on the one or more text-based feature labels.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the one or more text-based feature labels are each obtained from annotation data corresponding to one of the indexed features in the repository of images.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein the group of related images is identified based on geolocation information for each of the plurality of images.

11. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

identifying a common geographical area based on geolocation information for each image of the group of related images, wherein the title is further based at least in part on the common geographical area.

12. The method of claim 8, wherein the group of related images is identified based on time information for each of the plurality of images.

13. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

identifying a common time period based on time information for each image of the group of related images, wherein the title is further based at least in part on the common time period.

14. The method of claim 8, wherein each of the plurality of images is stored at a server-based storage system and are associated with an account that is associated with a user.

15. The method of claim 8, wherein each of the plurality of images is associated with a single image capture device.

16. A method comprising:

obtaining a plurality of images that are associated with a user;

obtaining, for each image from the plurality of images, geolocation information;

defining, by one or more computing devices and based on the geolocation information, a plurality of image groups that each include a plurality of images that correspond a distinct geographical area;

identifying, by the one or more computing devices, a home location for the user;

identifying, by the one or more computing devices, a first image group from the plurality of image groups that does not correspond to the home location for the user;

storing, by the one or more computing devices, the images from the first image group in an image collection; and

assigning, by the one or more computing devices, a title to the image collection, wherein the title is based at least in part on the distinct geographical area for the first image group.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein defining the plurality of image groups is performed using a clustering algorithm to define the image groups in geolocation-based clusters.

18. The method of claim 16, wherein the identifying the home location for the user includes receiving information from the user that specifies the home location.

19. The method of claim 16, wherein identifying the home location for the user includes selecting the distinct geographical area of a largest image group from the plurality of image groups as the home location for the user.

20. The method of claim 16, further comprising:

obtaining, for each image from the plurality of images, time information; and

identifying, for each image group from the plurality of image groups, one or more time-based image clusters, wherein identifying the home location for the user includes selecting the distinct geographical area of the image group having a largest number of time-based clusters as the home location for the user.