Abstract: A method includes identifying interrelated files stored on one or more storage devices for each topic grouping. The interrelated files correspond to a particular topic grouping and are determined based on metadata associated with the interrelated files. A relative importance for each of the interrelated files within each topic grouping is determined. The relative importance indicates an importance of each of the interrelated files in a corresponding topic grouping relative to the other files in the corresponding topic grouping based on metadata associated with the interrelated files. A montage of visual representations of the interrelated files for each topic grouping is displayed using a visual indication of the relative importance.

Abstract: Methods and systems for placing images on a display such that images that are closely related to each other are placed near each other, and images that are unrelated are placed further away. The invention encompasses various techniques that may be used to determine how related or similar images are to one another, including methods that take into account user-supplied tags or other tags that describe the image's content and/or source. Color content, image content, time of image capture, and/or, other attributes may also be used in assessing image similarity. For example, one embodiment of the invention is a method for laying out images based on the similarity of the images with respect to color, tags, and/or other metadata. The layout of images may also involve removing overlap between images.

Abstract: A method includes identifying interrelated files stored on one or more storage devices for each topic grouping. The interrelated files correspond to a particular topic grouping and are determined based on metadata associated with the interrelated files. A relative importance for each of the interrelated files within each topic grouping is determined. The relative importance indicates an importance of each of the interrelated files in a corresponding topic grouping relative to the other files in the corresponding topic grouping based on metadata associated with the interrelated files. A montage of visual representations of the interrelated files for each topic grouping is displayed using a visual indication of the relative importance.