Method for navigating through a set of images

A computer-readable storage medium comprising computer-readable instructions such that when executed on a processing unit the computer-readable instructions cause the processing unit to:

• receive information relating to a subset of images within said set of images, said information comprising metadata of each image within said subset of images, said metadata including at least a geographical position of an image capturing sensor when acquiring the image, a viewing angle of the image capturing sensor when acquiring the image, and image property information, said subset of images comprising images being acquired from a geographical position within a bounding area surrounding the geographical position of the image capturing sensor that acquired a current image within the set of images;
• receive weight information for determining similarities between images within said subset of images, said weight information controlling weights to be given to a plurality of different measures of similarities between images based on different types of metadata;
• and
• calculate a plurality of combined measures of similarity for pairs of images in the subset of images, wherein a first subset of the plurality of combined measures of similarity represent a similarity between the current image and an image within said subset of images and a second subset of the plurality of combined measures of similarity represent a similarity between pairs of images in the subset of images not including the current image, said calculating being performed using said metadata and said weight information.

A method for navigating through a set of images depicting a scenery, said method comprising:

• receiving information relating to a subset of images within said set of images, said information comprising metadata of each image within said subset of images, said metadata including at least a geographical position of an image capturing sensor when acquiring the image, a viewing angle of the image capturing sensor when acquiring the image, and image property information, said subset of images comprising images being acquired from a geographical position within a bounding area defined in relation to a start geographical position of navigation and a target geographical position of navigation;
• receiving weight information for determining similarities between images within said subset of images, said weight information controlling weights to be given to a plurality of different measures of similarities between images within said subset of images based on different types of metadata;
• calculating a plurality of combined measures of similarity between pairs of images in the subset of images, each combined measure of similarity representing a similarity between the images in a pair of images within said subset of images, said calculating being performed using said metadata and said weight information;
• determining a best ranked path from a first image in the subset of images to a second image in the subset of images, wherein the first image has a geographical position within a distance from the start geographical position that is smaller than a set threshold, the second image has a geographical position within a distance from the target geographical position that is smaller than a set threshold, and the path comprises a number of transitions between images from the first image via intermediate images to the second image;
• said determining comprising:
• calculating a transition measure of a path from the first image to the second image as a sum of the combined measures of similarity between pairs of images included in the transitions;
• and
• selecting the best ranked path based on a comparison of the transition measures for paths from the first image to the second image.

A method for navigating through a set of images depicting a scenery, said method comprising:

• receiving images depicting the scenery;
• storing images in a database;
• calculating sub-models of three-dimensional structures of objects in the scenery based on at least part of the received images, wherein each sub-model is assigned a three-dimensional reconstruction index;
• storing metadata of each of the received images in a database, said metadata including at least a geographical position of an image capturing sensor when acquiring the image, a viewing angle of the image capturing sensor when acquiring the image, image property information, and a three-dimensional reconstruction index indicating that the image is part of a particular sub-model of three-dimensional structure of objects;
• receiving, from a requestor, a request for navigation through the scenery including at least one geographical position in the scenery;
• determining a subset of images acquired from a geographical position within a bounding area surrounding the at least one geographical position in the scenery;
• and
• sending metadata of the subset of images to the requestor.