The present invention relates to the storage of digital images and more particularly to a method and apparatus for labeling images with metatags.
Cameras and other image capturing devices have increasingly become smaller and are often present in portable electronic devices, like cellular phones. The available memory space of portable electronic devices has been increasing rapidly such that many captured images may be digitally stored in the portable electronic devices. In addition to still images, the portable electronic devices may also capture and store video streams.
With the increase in storage capacity, it is important to allow users to quickly access the pictures stored in the memory. However, the more pictures that are stored in the memory, the longer it will take the user to search through all of the images for the one image they are looking for. For example, if the portable electronic device has 250 images stored in a memory, the user will not want to search through all of the images to find the specific image they are looking for.
One way of categorizing the stored images is to use metatags for each picture. Metatags are words which describe one or more features of the image which are stored with the image in a searchable form. For example, the metatags “Beach” and “Vacation 2007” may be used to describe a picture of a beach taken on the user's vacation in 2007. While the use of metatags can create an effective manner for looking for selected pictures, the use of metatags has several drawbacks. Today, a user has to either manually create the metatags and/or use some automatic techniques like image recognition to find people or objects in an image or GPS equipment to set the location of the picture. This process can be very time consuming and/or expensive which discourages people from using metatags with their pictures.
Thus, there is a need for a method and apparatus for labeling an image with metatags in a user friendly and economical manner.
According to some embodiments of the invention, a method for labeling an image recorded by a portable device with descriptive tags, comprising the steps of: recording sounds in the vicinity of the portable device; capturing the image; retrieving audio record of recorded sounds from a first predetermined period of time prior to the capture of the image until a second predetermined period of time after the capture of the image; processing the retrieved audio record to create a list of recognizable words in the retrieved audio record; and storing said list of recognizable words in a metatag field associated with the captured image.
According to another embodiment of the invention, a method for labeling an image recorded by a portable device, comprising the steps of: capturing the image; recording sounds in the vicinity of the portable device for a predetermined period of time after the image is captured; processing the recorded sounds to create a list of recognizable words in the recorded sounds; storing said list of recognizable words in a metatag field associated with the captured image.
According to another embodiment of the invention, a portable electronic device, comprising: a sound recording unit for recording sounds in the vicinity of the portable electronic device; an image capturing device for capturing an image; a processor for retrieving an audio record of recorded sounds from a first predetermined period of time prior to the capture of the image until a second predetermined period of time after the capture of the image; a word recognition system for processing the retrieved audio record to create a list of recognizable words in the retrieved audio record; and a memory for storing said list of recognizable words in a metatag field associated with the captured image.
According to another embodiment of the invention, a portable electronic device, comprising: an image capturing device for capturing an image; a sound recording unit for recording sounds in the vicinity of the portable electronic device for a predetermined period of time after the image is captured; a word recognition system for processing the recorded sounds to create a list of recognizable words in a the recorded sounds; and a memory for storing the list of recognizable words in a metatag field associated with the captured image.
Further embodiments of the invention are defined in the dependent claims.
It is an advantage of embodiments of the invention that the descriptive metatags are created automatically from the sounds recorded in the vicinity of the portable electronic device.
Further objects, features and advantages of embodiments of the invention will appear from the following detailed description of the invention, reference being made to the accompanying drawings, in which:
Specific illustrative embodiments of the invention will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings. This invention may, however, be embodied in many different forms and should not be construed as limited to the embodiments set forth herein. Rather, the disclosed embodiments are provided so that this specification will be thorough and complete, and will fully convey the scope of the invention to those skilled in the art. The terminology used in the detailed description of the particular embodiments illustrated in the accompanying drawings is not intended to be limiting of the invention. Furthermore, in the drawings like numbers refer to like elements.
In
One embodiment of the invention will now be described with reference to
The voice recognition unit 28 then processes the retrieved audio record to determine if any of the recorded sounds are recognizable words in step 307. In other words, the voice recognition unit 28 determines if the user (or some other person) spoke either before or after the image was captured which describe the picture. Since the user will know that this feature is being used, the user will know to speak words which will describe the image being captured.
The recognizable words are then put in a list. According to one embodiment of the invention, the list of recognizable words are then created into metatags for the captured image and stored with the captured image in step 309. In the alternative, the processor 21 can display the list of recognizable words on the display 12. The user can then select which of the words should be used as metatags using the keypad 14.
Another embodiment of the invention will now be described with reference to
The recognizable words are then put in a list. According to one embodiment of the invention, the list of recognizable words are then created into metatags for the captured image and stored with the captured image in step 407. In the alternative, the processor 21 can display the list of recognizable words on the display 12. The user can then select which of the words should be used as metatags using the keypad 14.
The present invention has been described above with reference to specific embodiments. However, other embodiments than the above described are equally possible within the scope of the invention. Different method steps than those described above, performing the method by hardware or software or a combination of hardware and software, may be provided within the scope of the invention. It should be appreciated that the different features and steps of the invention may be combined in other combinations than those described. The scope of the invention is only limited by the appended patent claims.