Site News  |   Monitor Keywords  |   Monitor Archive  |   Organizer  |   Account Info  |

Method and sytem for calendar-based image asset organization

Method and sytem for calendar-based image asset organization description/claims

This application is a continuation of U.S. Ser. No. 10/645,260 filed on Aug. 20, 2003, entitled “Method and System for Calendar Based Image Asset Organization” (Attorney Docket No. 006769.P001) and is also hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.

The present invention relates to organization of content, and in particular to organization of images based on dates.

With today's growth and advances in image capture devices, digital images are proliferating at a rate nearly equal to that of traditional film-based photographs. Digital scanners and digital still and video cameras with mega-pixel resolutions are becoming more and more affordable, and producing higher and higher quality images.

Conventional film-based photographs and video reels have often been saved in numerous photo albums and “shoe boxes”. As users of digital capture devices accumulate numbers of images into the thousands, organization of their images becomes nearly intractable. In order to be able to efficiently access their digital images using prior art hardware and software, users are typically required to manually classify images in terms of categories and sub-categories, or by key words or captions, or to manually save them within appropriate file folders and sub-folders. If a user's selection of categories and sub-categories, or folders and sub-folders is not carefully planned, search and retrieval of desired images will be overly time-consuming, and the user may have to re-classify his entire archive of images. Consider, for example, how time consuming it typically is for a user to locate a specific e-mail lie received a year ago, within the thousands of e-mails he receives per year; even more so with digital images, which are intended to be preserved for generations.

Thus a major concern of users of digital images today is efficient archival and retrieval, for large archives of images over long time spans.

The present invention provides a method and system for organizing digital images in an automatic and transparent way, without requiring manual work on the part of a user. The present invention uses dates of images for automatic storage and retrieval, so that a user can access his images according to their dates. In fact, this approach resembles the way people often save film-based photographs in shoe boxes, according to chronological events such as “Birthday Party 1968”, “Wedding 1978” and “Summer Vacation “1988”. Capture devices generally write a digital date and time stamp within image files. The present invention uses this information automatically without requiring manual entry by a user.

In a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the date information upon which storage and retrieval relies is a capture date recorded with an image at its time of acquisition. Such a date is available within an Exchangeable Image File (EXIF) file header. EXIF is a standard format for storing interchange information in image files, especially for images that are stored using JPEG compression. The EXIF format is part of the Design Rules for Camera File System (DCF) standard created by the Japanese Electronic Industry Development Association (JEIDA), to encourage interoperability between imaging devices. EXIF supports the storage of extended camera information within the header of each JPEG file, including inter alia the date & time the image was taken, exposure information (ISO, shutter, aperture) and other extended camera details. Today, most digital cameras use the EXIF format.

The present invention preferably includes a graphical user interface having a calendar display, making it intuitive and easy for a user to select a date range, and for viewing images having a date within the selected range.

There is thus provided in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention a calendar-based image asset organizer, including a user interface for designating at least one date range, an image date reader for determining a date associated with an image, and an image query manager for identifying images having an associated date within the designated at least one date range.

There is further provided in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention a method for organizing image assets, including receiving at least one designated date range, determining dates associated with images, and identifying images having an associated date within the at least one designated date range.

There is yet further provided in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention a computer-readable storage medium storing program code for causing a computer to perform the steps of receiving at least one designated date range, determining dates associated with images, and identifying images having an associated date within the at least one designated date range.

There is moreover provided in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention a calendar-based digital content organizer, including a user interface for designating at least one date range, a date reader for determining dates associated with digital content, and a query manager for identifying digital content having an associated date within the at least one designated date range.

There is additionally provided in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention a method for organizing digital content, including receiving at least one designated date range, determining dates associated with digital content, and identifying digital content having an associated date within the at least one designated date range.

There is further provided in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention a computer-readable storage medium storing program code for causing a computer to perform the steps of receiving at least one designated date range, determining dates associated with digital content, and identifying digital content having an associated date within the at least one designated date range.

• Provisional Patent
• Utility Patent

• What Is a Patent?
• What Is a Trademark or Servicemark?
• What Is a Copyright?
• Patent Laws