Abstract: Techniques for generating timelines and event logs from one or more fixed-position cameras based on the identification of activity in the video are presented. Various embodiments of the invention include an assessment of the importance of the activity, the creation of a timeline identifying events of interest, and interaction techniques for seeing more details of an event or alternate views of the video. In one embodiment, motion detection is used to determine activity in one or more synchronized video streams. In another embodiment, events are determined based on periods of activity and assigned importance assessments based on the activity, important locations in the video streams, and events from other sensors. In different embodiments, the interface consists of a timeline, event log, and map.

Abstract: Techniques for generating a storyboard are disclosed. In one embodiment of the invention the storyboard is comprised of videos from one or more cameras based on the identification of activity in the video. Various embodiments of the invention include an assessment of the importance of the activity, the creation of a storyboard presentation based on importance and interaction techniques for seeing more details or alternate views of the video. In one embodiment, motion detection is used to determine activity in one or more synchronized video streams. Periods of activity are recognized and assigned importance assessments based on the activity, important locations in the video streams, and events from other sensors. In different embodiments, the interface consists of a storyboard and a map.

Abstract: Techniques for generating action keyframes for a fixed-position camera based on the identification of activity in the video, an assessment of the importance of the activity, object recognition in the video, and interaction techniques for seeing more details of the video are presented. In different embodiments of the invention, the importance of activity is determined based on the amount of activity, important locations in the video streams, detected features such as faces, and events from other sensors.

Abstract: A system that represents a video sequence comprising plurality of video clips as a number of images. The plurality of video clips is represented as a reduced representation of video images. A video clip is represented as a keyframe, wherein multiple keyframes may then be arranged according to chronological order. All or only a representative portion of the video clips can be represented as keyframes. The size of the keyframe may be configured to represent the length or importance of the video clip. The keyframe may depict an entire frame of a video clip, or a region of meaningful information within a frame of a video clip. Multiple keyframes may be arranged in a two dimensional array, in an S-shaped curve, or some other pattern. The keyframes may depict motion of an object occurring over time in the video clip by configuring groups of pixels in the key frame.

Abstract: Techniques for reducing the computational complexity of conventional similarity-based approaches for temporal event clustering of digital photograph collections include one or more approaches to select boundaries based on dynamic programming and the Bayes information criterion. Each method performs competitively with conventional approaches and offer significant computational savings.

Abstract: Video recordings of meetings and scanned paper documents are natural digital documents that come out of a meeting. These can be placed on the Internet for easy access, with links generated between them by matching scanned documents to a segment of the video referencing the scanned document. Furthermore, annotations made on the paper documents during the meeting can be extracted and used as indexes to the video. An orthonormal transform, such as a Digital Cosine Transform (DCT) is used to compare scanned documents to video frames.

Abstract: Video recordings of meetings and scanned paper documents are natural digital documents that come out of a meeting. These can be placed on the Internet for easy access, with links generated between them by matching scanned documents to a segment of the video referencing the scanned document. Furthermore, annotations made on the paper documents during the meeting can be extracted and used as indexes to the video. An orthonormal transform, such as a Digital Cosine Transform (DCT) is used to compare scanned documents to video frames.

Abstract: The invention displays video search results in a form that makes it easy for users to determine which results are truly relevant. Each story returned as a search result is visualized as a collage of keyframes from the story's shots. The selected keyframes and their sizes depend on the corresponding shots' respective relevance. Shot relevance depends on the search retrieval score of the shot and, in some embodiments, also depends on the search retrieval score of the shot's parent story. Once areas have been determined, the keyframes are scaled and/or cropped to fit into the area. In one embodiment, users can mark one or more shots as being relevant to the search. In one embodiment, a timeline is created and displayed with one or more neighbor stories that are each part of the video and which are closest in time of creation to the selected story.

Abstract: A system and method for identifying query-related keywords in documents found in a search using latent semantic analysis. The documents are represented as a document term matrix M containing one or more document term-weight vectors d, which may be term-frequency (tf) vectors or term-frequency inverse-document-frequency (tf-idf) vectors. This matrix is subjected to a truncated singular value decomposition. The resulting transform matrix U can be used to project a query term-weight vector q into the reduced N-dimensional space, followed by its expansion back into the full vector space using the inverse of U. To perform a search, the similarity of qexpanded is measured relative to each candidate document vector in this space. Exemplary similarity functions are dot product and cosine similarity. Keywords are selected with the highest values in qexpanded that are also comprised in at least one document. Matching keywords from the query may be highlighted in the search results.

Abstract: Music videos are automatically produced from source audio and video signals. The music video contains edited portions of the video signal synchronized with the audio signal. An embodiment detects transition points in the audio signal and the video signal. The transition points are used to align in time the video and audio signals. The video signal is edited according to its alignment with the audio signal. The resulting edited video signal is merged with the audio signal to form a music video.

Abstract: An algorithm for finding regions of interest (ROI) in synthetic images based on an information driven approach in which sub-blocks of a set of synthetic image are analyzed for information content or compressibility based on textural and color features. A DCT may be used to analyze the textural features of a set of images and a color histogram may be used to analyze the color features of the set of images. Sub-blocks of low compressibility are grouped into ROIs using a type of morphological technique. Unlike other algorithms that are geared for highly specific types of ROI (e.g. OCR text detection), the method of the present invention is generally applicable to arbitrary synthetic images. The present invention can be used with several other image applications, including Stained-Glass collages presentations.

Abstract: An algorithm for finding regions of interest (ROI) in images and photos based on an information driven approach in which sub-blocks of an image are analyzed for information content or compressibility based on the discrete cosine transform. The sub-blocks of low compressibility are grouped into ROIs using a morphological technique. Unlike other algorithms that are geared for highly specific types of ROI (e.g. face detection), the method of the present invention is generally applicable to arbitrary images and photos. A center-weighted variation of the algorithm can produce better results for certain photo applications. The algorithm can be used with several other image applications, including Stained-Glass collages and Pan-and-Scan presentations.

Abstract: In one embodiment, the present invention extracts video regions of interest from one or more videos and generates a highly condensed visual summary of the videos. The video regions of interest are extracted based on to energy, movement, face or other object detection methods, associated data or external input, or some other feature of the video. In another embodiment, the present invention extracts regions of interest from images and generates highly condensed visual summaries of the images. The highly condensed visual summary is generated by laying out germs on a canvas and then filling the spaces between the germs. The result is a visual summary that resembles a stained glass window having cells of varying shape. The germs may be laid out by temporal order, color histogram, similarity, according to a desired pattern, size, or some other manner. The people, objects and other visual content in the germs appear larger and become easier to see.

Abstract: In one embodiment, the present invention extracts video regions of interest from one or more videos and generates a highly condensed visual summary of the videos. The video regions of interest are extracted based on to energy, movement, face or other object detection methods, associated data or external input, or some other feature of the video. In another embodiment, the present invention extracts regions of interest from images and generates highly condensed visual summaries of the images. The highly condensed visual summary is generated by laying out germs on a canvas and then filling the spaces between the germs. The result is a visual summary that resembles a stained glass window having cells of varying shape. The germs may be laid out by temporal order, color histogram, similarity, according to a desired pattern, size, or some other manner. The people, objects and other visual content in the germs appear larger and become easier to see.

Abstract: A 3D graphical user interface includes a two-dimensional ground-plane layout representing the relationship between one or more leaf elements of a tree data structure. The interface further includes at least one building-like structure, each of the at least one building-like structure corresponding to a respective one of the one or more leaf elements. Each of the at least one building-like structure provides a summary of media associated with the respective one of the more leaf elements corresponding to at least one building-like structure.

Abstract: In one aspect, the present invention is directed to a method and an apparatus for organizing digital media, particularly digital photos, using face recognition. According to a first aspect of the present invention, a computer-based method for organizing digital photos comprises: extracting objects of interest from a plurality of photographs; cropping said plurality of photographs to generate images of isolated objects of interest; applying a recognition algorithm to determine the similarity of isolated objects of interest with a reference; displaying a plurality of objects arranged as a function of the determined similarity; and receiving user input to associate said objects with a particular classification.

Abstract: Data organizing systems and methods organize a plurality of data files using meta data or other data relating to a plurality of data files by extracting the related data for at least some of the data files, organizing the extracted related data and dividing at least some of the data files into groups based on the extracted related data and an input parameter value.

Abstract: An automatic re-authoring system and method re-author a document originally designed for display on a desktop computer screen for display on a smaller display screen, such as those used with a PDA or a cellular telephone. The automatic re-authoring system and method input a document to be re-authored and re-authoring parameters, such as display screen size, default font and the like. The automatic re-authoring system and method convert the document into a number of pages, where each page is fully displayable with only at most a minimal amount of scrolling on the display screen of the PDA or cellular phone. At each stage of the re-authoring, a number of different transformations are applied to the original document or a selected re-authored page. The selected re-authored page is the best page resulting from the previous re-authoring stage. The best page at each stage is determined based on the re-authoring parameters and the content of the document being re-authored.

Abstract: A hypervideo summary comprised of multiple levels of related content and appropriate navigational links can be automatically generated from a media file such as a linear video. A number of algorithms and selection criteria can be used to modify how such a summary is generated. Viewers of an automatically-generated hypervideo summary can interactively select the amount of detail displayed for each portion of the summary. This selection can be done by following explicit navigational links, or by changing between media channels that are mapped to the various levels of related content. This description is not intended to be a complete description of, or limit the scope of, the invention. Other features, aspects, and objects of the invention can be obtained from a review of the specification, the figures, and the claims.

Abstract: A method, information system, and computer-readable medium is provided for segmenting a plurality of data, such as multimedia data, and in particular an image document stream. Segment boundary points may be used for retrieving and/or browsing the plurality of data. Similarly, segment boundary points may be used to summarize the plurality of data. Examples of image document streams include video, PowerPoint slides, and NoteLook pages. A genetic method having a fitness or evaluation function using information retrieval concepts, such as importance and precedence, is used to obtain segment boundary points. The genetic method is able to evaluate a large amount of data in a cost effective manner. The genetic method is also able to run incrementally on streaming video and adapt to usage patterns by considering frequently accessed images.