AUTOMATIC DIGITAL IMAGE GROUPING USING CRITERIA BASED ON IMAGE METADATA AND SPATIAL INFORMATION

摘要

PPROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an automatic digital image grouping system and method for automatically generating groupings of related images based on criteria that includes image metadata and spatial information. PSOLUTION: The system and method takes an unordered and unorganized set of digital images and organizes and groups related images into image subsets. Metadata already embedded inside the images is used to extract image subsets. This metadata may include the temporal proximity of images, focal length, color overlap, geographical location, and the like. In a subset image stage of a first component, the metadata is analyzed to generate potential image subsets containing related images. In an overlap detection stage of a second component, potential image subset is analyzed and verified by examining pixels of the related images. PCOPYRIGHT: (C)2007,JPO&INPIT