Image exchange with image annotation
AssigneeMicrosoft Corporation
InventorsKentaro Toyama, David Vronay, Padmanabhan Anandan
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A system and method for providing a peer-to-peer photo-sharing environment. The system includes: manual and automatic photo annotation at the client; periodic client-server synchronization; an index of client photos on a central server or a photo database that is resident on the central server, which is updated by the client-server synchronization function; end-user search functionality to search the centralized index or photo database; and transmission of the relevant photos to the client via an on-line image cache. In one embodiment, one client's new photos are automatically displayed on another client's computer (e.g., via screen saver or another mechanism).
Claims19
A computer-implemented process for sharing images among a plurality of clients, comprising the process actions of:
- inputting images at a hosting client;
- annotating said images with metadata at said hosting client;
- creating a local index of said images and local database of said images at said hosting client;
- synchronizing said hosting client's local index with a master index of a central server which automatically retrieves and combines the meta data of an image among said images with meta data associated with the same image from other locations on a network connecting the central server and hosting clients, said master index comprising all images available for sharing at all hosting clients and at said central server;
- and
- providing images from said hosting client.
A computer-implemented process for sharing images comprising the process actions of:
- inputting images at a hosting client;
- automatically retrieving from other locations on the network and annotating said images with metadata associated with the same image located in a different location at said hosting client;
- at said hosting client creating a master index of all images available for sharing at all hosting clients and at said central server;
- creating a local index of images input at the hosting client and a local database wherein the images include the meta data associated with the same image located at a different location of said images at said hosting client;
- providing images from said hosting client.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.