DYNAMIC DEFINITIVE IMAGE SERVICE

• US 20160357786A1
• Filed: 08/18/2016
• Published: 12/08/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 12/30/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Hamilton, Justin, Ma, Troy, Wu, Kun, Lang, Bing, Sheng, Xiaowei, Vemuluru, Avinash, Borza, Paul
• Granted Patent: US 9,910,867 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/20 of structured data, e.g. relational data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24578 using ranking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/51 Indexing; Data structures therefor; Storage structures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/58 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/5846 using extracted text
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/5866 using information manually generated, e.g. tags, keywords, comments, manually generated location and time information

Abstract

A representative image system is described herein that provides a representative image for any given search query. Upon receiving a search for a term (or terms), the system accesses an inverted index to identify images associated with that term. The system then receives a ranked list of images. The ranked list includes image identifiers, and once an item in the list is selected the system can use the associated image identifier to retrieve the image from a thumbnail or other server. If an editor has overridden the default image for the present search query, then the system returns the image identifier for the overridden image, which can be used to access the image from the thumbnail or other server. Thus, the representative image system provides a reliable and universal mechanism for retrieving representative images for any given topic dynamically in real time.

Claims

1. A computer system for providing a dynamic definitive image service, the system comprising:

a processor and memory configured to execute software instructions embodied within the following components;

an image data store that stores data regarding one or more images;

an image request component that receives a request during a query for a definitive image that is representative of a topic of the query;

an image mapping component that maps one or more query terms of the received request to one or more images that are related to the one or more query terms;

an image ranking component that ranks the one or more identified images according to a relative likelihood of being a definitive image for the topic of the query;

an editorial override component that provides an interface through which a human editor can manually override the definitive image selected by other components of the system to identify an editor-chosen definitive image;

an image selection component that selects a definitive image based on images returned from the index, any overridden editor-chosen definitive image, and ranking input from the image ranking component;

a retrieval component that retrieves an image binary associated with the selected definitive image; and

an image response component that responds to the received request with the retrieved image binary.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the image ranking component ranks the one or more identified images based on relevance of an image to a query term and a quality of the image.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the data regarding one or more images comprises a plurality of image binaries.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the data regarding one or more images comprises a plurality of references to image binaries stored in remote data stores.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the image request component operates on top of a search engine that services requests for definitive images in addition to requests for images or other types of searches already handled by the search engine.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the image mapping component maintains an inverted index of the image data stored in the data store, and wherein the image mapping component maps one or more query terms of the received request to one or more images according to the inverted index.

7. The system of claim 6 wherein the inverted index is shared between a search engine service for finding multiple images in response to a search query and a search engine service for finding a single definitive image related to a search query.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the image ranking component applies a neural net ranker that factors in information on an authoritativeness of a source of the image and a quality of the image to rank the one or more identified images.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the image selection component provides as output a single definitive image that represents the topic of the query received in the image request.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the image ranking component determines the most likely definitive image for the topic of the query according to the rankings of the one or more identified images.

11. A computer-implemented method to access a definitive image, the method comprising each of the following as implemented by a processor of a computer:

storing data regarding a plurality of images in an image data store;

receiving a request during a query for a definitive image that is representative of a topic of the query;

identifying one or more images that are related to the topic of the query from the data regarding the plurality of images in the image data store;

ranking each of the one or more identified images with a relative likelihood score of being the definitive image for the topic of the query;

selecting the definitive image according to the relative likelihood score of the one or more identified and according to any manual editor overrides of a definitive image for the topic of the query;

retrieving an image binary associated with the selected definitive image; and

sending the retrieved image binary as the definitive image for the topic of the query in response to the request.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein ranking each of the one or more identified images with a relative likelihood score comprises ranking the one or more identified images based on relevance of an image to a query term and a quality of the image.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein the data regarding one or more images comprises a plurality of image binaries.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the data regarding one or more images comprises a plurality of references to image binaries stored in remote data stores

15. The method of claim 11, wherein the request comprises information indicating a requested quality level of the requested definitive image.

16. The method of claim 11, wherein ranking each of the one or more identified images with a relative likelihood score of being the definitive image for the topic of the query comprises ranking each of the one or more identified images according to a corresponding image resolution and authority information associated with an image.

17. Computer-readable media encoded with computer-readable instructions which, when executed by a processor on a computing system, carry out a method for providing a definitive image, the method comprising:

storing data regarding a plurality of images in an image data store;

receiving a request during a query for a definitive image that is representative of a topic of the query;

identifying one or more images that are related to the topic of the query from the data regarding the plurality of images in the image data store;

ranking each of the one or more identified images with a relative likelihood score of being the definitive image for the topic of the query;

selecting the definitive image according to the relative likelihood score of the one or more identified and according to any manual editor overrides of a definitive image for the topic of the query;

retrieving an image binary associated with the selected definitive image; and

sending the retrieved image binary as the definitive image for the topic of the query in response to the request.

18. The computer-readable media of claim 17, wherein ranking each of the one or more identified images with a relative likelihood score comprises ranking the one or more identified images based on relevance of an image to a query term and a quality of the image.

19. The computer-readable media of claim 17, wherein the request comprises information indicating a requested quality level of the requested definitive image.

20. The computer-readable media of claim 17, wherein ranking each of the one or more identified images with a relative likelihood score of being the definitive image for the topic of the query comprises ranking each of the one or more identified images according to a corresponding image resolution and authority information associated with an image.