Patent Grant
7644373
Many search engine services, such as Google and Overture, provide for searching for information that is accessible via the Internet. These search engine services allow users to search for display pages, such as web pages, that may be of interest to users. After a user submits a search request (also referred to as a “query”) that includes search terms, the search engine service identifies web pages that may be related to those search terms. To quickly identify related web pages, the search engine services may maintain a mapping of keywords to web pages. This mapping may be generated by “crawling” the web (i.e., the World Wide Web) to identify the keywords of each web page. To crawl the web, a search engine service may use a list of base web pages to identify all web pages that are accessible through those base web pages. The keywords of any particular web page can be identified using various well-known information retrieval techniques, such as identifying the words of a headline, the words supplied in the metadata of the web page, the words that are highlighted, and so on. The search engine service may generate a relevance score to indicate how related the information of the web page may be to the search request. The search engine service then displays to the user links to those web pages in an order that is based on their relevance.
Several search engine services also provide for searching for images that are available on the Internet. These image search engines typically generate a mapping of keywords to images by crawling the web in much the same way as described above for mapping keywords to web pages. An image search engine service can identify keywords based on text of the web pages that contain the images. An image search engine may also gather keywords from metadata associated with images of web-based image forums, which are an increasingly popular mechanism for people to publish their photographs and other images. An image forum allows users to upload their photographs and requires the users to provide associated metadata such as title, camera setting, category, and description. The image forums typically allow reviewers to rate each of the uploaded images and thus have ratings on the quality of the images. Regardless of how the mappings are generated, an image search engine service inputs an image query and uses the mapping to find images that are related to the image query. An image search engine service may identify thousands of images that are related to an image query and presents thumbnails of the related images. To help a user view the images, an image search engine service may order the thumbnails based on relevance of the images to the image query. An image search engine service may also limit the number of images that are provided to a few hundred of the most relevant images so as not to overwhelm the viewer. Unfortunately, the relevance determination may not be particularly accurate because image queries may be ambiguous (e.g., “tiger” may represent the animal or the golfer), the keywords derived from web pages may not be very related to an image of the web page (e.g., a web page can contain many unrelated images), and so on.
A typical image search engine service may also suggest additional image queries to a user. For example, if a user submits “tiger” as an image query, an image search engine service may display thumbnails of images relating to “tiger” in relevance order. That image search engine service may also display the text of suggested image queries, such as “white tiger,” “mystical tiger,” “Tiger Woods,” and so on. When a user selects one of the suggested image queries, that image search engine service searches for images relating to the selected image query and displays the thumbnails of the images as the search result. Such a user interface has several disadvantages. First, a user may not know from the text of the suggested image query whether the images relating to the suggested image query will be of interest to the user. For example, a user may not know from the suggested image query “mystical tiger” what type of images will be in the search result. Second, the ordering of the thumbnails based on relevance of the images to the image query may result in thumbnails for only one type of image being displayed (e.g., a Bengal tiger) in the first few pages of results. Thus, the user may need to view many pages to get a feel for the different types of images (e.g., a mystical tiger) that are related to the image query.
A method and system for providing a user interface for presenting images of clusters of an image search result is provided. The user interface system is provided with clusters of images as the search result of an image query. The user interface system displays the search result in a cluster/view form using a cluster panel and a view panel. The cluster panel contains a cluster area for each cluster. The cluster area for a cluster may include the name of the cluster and mini-thumbnails of some of the images of the cluster. The view panel may contain thumbnails of images of the search result in a lucky view or a mix view. In the lucky view, the view panel contains thumbnails of images of a single cluster that may be arranged in a grid. In the mix view, the view panel contains thumbnails of images from multiple clusters that may also be arranged in a grid. When a user selects a cluster area from the cluster panel, the user interface system displays a list view of thumbnails for that cluster in the view panel.
The user interface system may display a thumbnail list near a cluster area of the cluster panel. The thumbnail list contains mini-thumbnails of the images of the selected cluster. When a user selects a mini-thumbnail from the thumbnail list, the user interface system may display a detail view of the corresponding image in the view panel.
The user interface system displays a detail view of an image in the view panel when a user selects an image. The detail view may include metadata associated with the image such as camera setting, photographer, and so on. The user interface system may also display a thumbnail scroll list in the view panel along with the detail view. A thumbnail scroll list contains mini-thumbnails of images. The user interface may select images to be included in a thumbnail scroll list based on the context in which the image of the detail view was selected.
This Summary is provided to introduce a selection of concepts in a simplified form that are further described below in the Detailed Description. This Summary is not intended to identify key features or essential features of the claimed subject matter, nor is it intended to be used as an aid in determining the scope of the claimed subject matter.
A method and system for providing a user interface for presenting images of clusters of an image search result is provided. In one embodiment, the user interface system is provided with clusters of images as the search result of an image query. Each cluster of images includes a cluster name and for each image of the cluster, a thumbnail of the image, metadata associated with the image, and a link to the image. The images within a cluster may be ordered based on their relevance to the image query. The user interface system displays the search result in a cluster/view form using a cluster panel and a view panel. The cluster panel contains a cluster area for each cluster. The cluster area for a cluster may include the name of the cluster and mini-thumbnails of some of the images of the cluster. The cluster areas of the cluster panel may be ordered based on a relevance score of the images of the cluster to the image query or may be ordered based on the number of images in the cluster. The view panel may contain thumbnails of images of the search result in a list view or a mix view. In the list view, the view panel contains thumbnails of images of a single cluster that may be arranged in a grid. The thumbnails in list view may be ordered based on relevance of the corresponding images to the image query. In the mix view, the view panel contains thumbnails of images from multiple clusters that may also be arranged in a grid. The thumbnails in mix view may be ordered in an image relevance to cluster order in which the thumbnail of the most relevant image of each cluster is ordered first, followed by the thumbnail of the second most relevant image of each image cluster, and so on. The list view thus provides a view of the images of a single cluster, and the mix view provides a view of the most relevant images from each cluster. Moreover, the cluster panel allows a user to get an understanding of the images of each cluster from the mini-thumbnails of the cluster areas. When a user selects a cluster area from the cluster panel, the user interface system displays a list view of thumbnails for that cluster in the view panel. The cluster panel and the view panel may contain scrollbars for scrolling the content of the panel.
In one embodiment, the user interface system may display a thumbnail list near a cluster area of the cluster panel. When a user selects a cluster (e.g., by right clicking on a cluster area), the user interface system displays a thumbnail list that may overlay a portion of the cluster panel and the view panel. The thumbnail list contains mini-thumbnails of the images of the selected cluster. For example, the user interface system may display in a rectangular area the mini-thumbnails for the 30 images with the highest relevance. The user interface system may position the rectangular area just below and to the right of the cluster area for the selected cluster. When a user selects a mini-thumbnail from the thumbnail list, the user interface system may display a detail view of the corresponding image in the view panel. If the user selects multiple mini-thumbnails from the thumbnail list, the user interface system may display thumbnails of the corresponding images in the view panel. The user interface system may also provide a scrollbar for the thumbnail list when a cluster contains more images than can be effectively displayed as mini-thumbnails at the same time.
In one embodiment, the user interface system displays a detail view of an image in the view panel when a user selects an image (e.g., by selecting a thumbnail from the view panel or mini-thumbnail from a thumbnail list). The detail view may include metadata associated with the image such as camera setting, photographer, and so on. The user interface system may also display a thumbnail scroll list in the view panel along with the detail view. A thumbnail scroll list contains mini-thumbnails of images. A user can scroll through the mini-thumbnails and select a mini-thumbnail of interest. When a user selects a mini-thumbnail, the user interface system displays in the view panel a detail view of the image associated with the selected mini-thumbnail. The user interface may select images to be included in a thumbnail scroll list based on the context in which the image of the detail view was selected. For example, if the image for the detail view was selected from a thumbnail within the view panel, then the images of the other thumbnails displayed in the view panel would be included in the thumbnail scroll list. If the view panel was in list view, then the images of the same cluster would be included in the thumbnail scroll list. If the view panel was in mix view, then the images of multiple clusters would be included in the thumbnail scroll list. If the image for the detail view was selected from a thumbnail list, then the images of the same cluster would be included in the thumbnail scroll list.
The user interface component displays a query panel and submits an image query to the search for images component. Upon receiving the search result, the user interface component invokes the appropriate components to display the search result. The components for displaying the search result in different ways are a cluster view component 814, a list view component 815, a mix view component 816, a box view component 817, a detail view component 818, and a thumbnail list view component 819. The cluster view component controls the displaying of the cluster panel. The list view component controls the displaying of the view panel in list view. The mix view component controls the displaying of the view panel in mix view. The box view component controls the displaying of the box panel. The detail view component controls the displaying of the detail view of an image. The thumbnail list view component controls the displaying of a thumbnail list.
The computing devices on which the user interface system may be implemented may include a central processing unit, memory, input devices (e.g., keyboard and pointing devices), output devices (e.g., display devices), and storage devices (e.g., disk drives). The memory and storage devices are computer-readable media that may contain instructions that implement the user interface system. In addition, the data structures and message structures may be stored or transmitted via a data transmission medium, such as a signal on a communications link. Various communications links may be used, such as the Internet, a local area network, a wide area network, or a point-to-point dial-up connection.
The user interface system may provide a user interface to various computing systems or devices including personal computers, server computers, hand-held or laptop devices, multiprocessor systems, microprocessor-based systems, programmable consumer electronics, network PCs, minicomputers, mainframe computers, distributed computing environments that include any of the above systems or devices, and the like. The user interface system may also provide its services to various computing systems such as personal computers, cell phones, personal digital assistants, consumer electronics, home automation devices, and so on.
The user interface system may be described in the general context of computer-executable instructions, such as program modules, executed by one or more computers or other devices. Generally, program modules include routines, programs, objects, components, data structures, and so on that perform particular tasks or implement particular abstract data types. Typically, the functionality of the program modules may be combined or distributed as desired in various embodiments.
Although the subject matter has been described in language specific to structural features and/or methodological acts, it is to be understood that the subject matter defined in the appended claims is not necessarily limited to the specific features or acts described above. Rather, the specific features and acts described above are disclosed as example forms of implementing the claims. The user interface system may be used to present content of various types, such as photographs, drawings, artwork, videos, music, and so on. Accordingly, the invention is not limited except as by the appended claims.
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