Method of providing street view data of a real estate property

• US 9,311,396 B2
• Filed: 03/09/2013
• Issued: 04/12/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 08/31/2004
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Visual Real Estate Incorporated (California Gold Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Visual Real Estate Incorporated (California Gold Corporation)
• Inventors: Meadow, William D., Gordie, Randall A. Jr.
• Primary Examiner(s): Abdul-Ali, Omar
• Application Number:
  US13/791,943
• Publication Number:
  US 20140089811A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,130 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/29 Geographical information databases
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/50 of still image data
• 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 16/587 using geographical or spatial information, e.g. location
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/78 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/7867 using information manually generated, e.g. tags, keywords, comments, title and artist information, manually generated time, location and usage information, user ratings
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/787 using geographical or spatial information, e.g. location
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9537 Spatial or temporal dependent retrieval, e.g. spatiotemporal queries
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0484 for the control of specific functions or operations, e.g. selecting or manipulating an object, an image or a displayed text element, setting a parameter value or selecting a range
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/10 Text processing natural language analysis G06F40/20; semantic analysis G06F40/30; processing or translation of natural language G06F40/40
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0278 Product appraisal
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0623 Item investigation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0629 for generating comparisons
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/16 Real estate
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 11/60 Editing figures and text; Combining figures or text
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 17/05 Geographic models
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 17/20 Finite element generation, e.g. wire-frame surface description, tesselation
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 19/006 Mixed reality object pose determination, tracking or camera calibration for mixed reality G06T7/00
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 3/4038 Image mosaicing, e.g. composing plane images from plane sub-images
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/698 : for achieving an enlarged field of view, e.g. panoramic image capture
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/28 : Mobile studios
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/18 : Closed-circuit television [CCTV] systems, i.e. systems in which the video signal is not broadcast
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/181 : for receiving images from a plurality of remote sources

Abstract

Video drive-by data provides a street level view of a neighborhood surrounding a selected geographic location. A video and data server farm incorporates a video storage server that stores video image files containing video drive-by data corresponding to a geographic location, a database server that processes a data query received from a user over the Internet corresponding to a geographic location of interest, and an image processing server. In operation, the database server identifies video image files stored in the video storage server that correspond to the geographic location of interest contained in the data query and transfers the video image files over a pre-processing network to the image processing server. The image processing server converts the video drive-by data to post-processed video data corresponding to a desired image format and transfers the post-processed video data via a post-processing network to the Internet in response to the query.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

(a) receiving a first request, wherein the request is received across a network by a processing device including a memory and a processor;

(b) transmitting user interface data, wherein the user interface data comprises;

overhead map data; and

a click through link associated with a first real estate property indicated in the overhead map data, wherein the click through link initiates a second request for captured image data including composite image data comprising at least a portion of multiple image frames captured by a camera attached to a vehicle and calculated to be oriented at street level towards a centroid of a real estate parcel associated with the first real estate property;

(c) receiving the second request; and

(d) transmitting the captured image data and layer data associated with the first real estate property.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the camera is a video camera, and wherein the captured image data includes multiple frames captured by the video camera.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the captured image data is captured by a plurality of cameras oriented at street level to the first real estate property, and wherein each of the plurality of cameras are approximately co-located.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the first request of (a) is a webpage request made by a browser.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the transmitting of (b) is performed in response to receiving the first request in (a), wherein the overhead map data is used to display a map to a user, wherein the click through link is superimposed on the map and is visible to the user, and wherein the first real estate property is indicated on the map.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the second request of (c) is a webpage request made by a browser.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the transmitting of (d) is performed in response to receiving the second request in (c), wherein the layer data is superimposed on the captured image data, thereby generating a composite image, and wherein the composite image is displayed to a user.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the layer data includes information taken from the group consisting of :

geo-coded data, vector data, property county parcel data, landmark data or county property line data.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the captured image data associated with the first real estate property comprises an image that that is centered on a centroid of a parcel on which the first real estate property is located.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the layer data includes information taken from the group consisting of :

record data, sale price data of the first real estate property, sale price data of a comparable real estate property, owner data, or address data of the first real estate property.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the layer data includes information taken from the group consisting of:

Multiple Listing Services (MLS) data or a visual cue data indicating where the first real estate property is located within the captured image data.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the camera is attached to a vehicle traveling at street level relative to the first real estate property, and wherein the captured image data comprises a plurality of images captured from discrete points traversed by the vehicle while the vehicle is in proximity to the first real estate property.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the captured image data transmitted in (d) includes a plurality of images of the first real estate property.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the captured image data is captured via a plurality of cameras, wherein each of the plurality of cameras are co-located, and wherein each of the plurality of cameras are oriented in a unique direction.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the captured image data includes three hundred and sixty degree street views about the plurality of cameras.

16. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

(e) transmitting aerial data associated with the first real estate property, wherein the aerial data includes an overhead photo of the first real estate property.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein the network in (a) is the Internet.

18. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

(e) receiving a third request for captured image data including an image captured by the camera oriented at street level to a second real estate property; and

(f) transmitting captured image data and layer data associated with the second real estate property.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the third request of (e) is a webpage request made by a browser, and wherein the network in (a) is the Internet.

20. The method of claim 18, wherein the transmitting of (f) is performed in response to receiving the third request in (e), wherein the layer data is superimposed on the captured image data including an image captured by the camera oriented at street level to the second real estate property, thereby generating a composite image, and wherein the composite image is displayed to a user.