Automatic digital image grouping using criteria based on image metadata and spatial information

Claim 2

The method of claim 1, further comprising selecting an image processing technique to process the potential image subsets based on whether the potential image subset is a panorama or a true image stack.

Claim 3

The method of claim 1, further comprising selecting at least one collection recognizer as criteria for generating the potential image subset.

Claim 4

The method of claim 3, wherein the collection recognizer is at least one of: (a) similar temporal proximity; (b) similar focal length; (c) similar geographical location; (d) thumbnail images.

Claim 5

The method of claim 1, wherein analyzing metadata associated with each image further comprises obtaining the metadata in an exchangeable image file, EXIF, associated with each image without opening the image.

Claim 6

The method of claim 1 further comprising: a selection step for selecting collection recognizers that are criteria for which metadata to examine, the collection recognizers including temporal proximity and focal length; and an image processing step for processing the potential image subsets using an image processing technique.

Claim 7

The method of claim 6, wherein the collection recognizers include at least one of: (a) color overlap using thumbnail images; (b) geographical location, including the location on earth of where an image was captured and a direction that the image is facing.

Claim 8

The method of claim 6, further comprising analyzing the metadata of each image without opening the image to examine its pixels.

Claim 9

The method of claim 8, further comprising analyzing and verifying the potential image subsets using a pairwise technique that opens each image of the potential image subsets and performs a pixel analysis of pixels in each image.

Claim 10

The method of claim 9, further comprising determining whether the images of the potential image subsets are panoramas or true image stacks.

Claim 11

The method of claim 10, further comprising selecting the image processing technique to process the potential image subsets based on whether the images of the potential image subsets are panoramas or true image stacks.

Claim 12

A computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions for performing the method recited in claim 1.

Claim 13

An automatic image grouping system for discovering a related group of images, comprising: an unordered image set (110) containing a plurality of unorganized digital images; a metadata analysis module (330) that analyzes metadata associated with each of the plurality of digital images; a metadata relation module located on the metadata analysis module that determines which of the plurality of digital images is related based on collection recognizers, the collection recognizers being criteria that dictates which metadata to analyze; a potential image subset (140, 310), being output by the metadata analysis module (330) that contains the related group of images; a collection recognizer selection module that determines which collection recognizers to use by the metadata relation module; and a verification module (320) that analyzes and verifies the potential image subset using a pairwise technique, wherein the pairwise technique looks for overlapping relationships between images; characterized by a user interface displayed on a display device for presenting to a user of the system which image groupings were used to form the potential image subset and which images were not used; and a user interface displayed on the display device for informing the user whether the potential image subset contains images that form a panorama or a true image stack, wherein the true image stack is a collection of images that capture a same scene but have very little camera motion between the images, which means that the true image stack was captured by taking multiple exposures or was a repeated group shot.