System and method for automatic detection of duplicate digital photos
AssigneesSony Corporation, Sony Electronics Inc.
InventorsPaul Jin Hwang, Rachel Thuy Nguyen, Guoxuan Zhang, Jianyu Roy Zheng
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Hashes of metadata of digital photographs on, e.g., a removable camera memory are compared against values in a hash table representing previously stored photographs on an archive computer to ensure that only previously unstored photos are copied onto the archive computer.
Claims15
A method for storing, onto a first computer storage, digital photo files on a second computer storage, comprising:
- for at least one photo file representing a digital photograph on the second computer storage, accessing metadata of the file, the metadata being established by a combination of one or more exchangeable image file (EXIF) parameters and a file size associated with the photo file;
- comparing a hash of the metadata with data in a data structure representing photo files that have been previously stored onto the first computer storage;
- and
- determining whether or not to store the photo file onto the first computer storage based at least in part on the comparing, wherein the photo file is stored onto the first computer storage only if the hash matches data in a data structure representing photo files that have been previously stored onto the first computer storage such that duplicate photos are detected and not copied thereby.
An apparatus for storing digital photo files, comprising:
- at least a first computer storage;
- and
- at least one processor accessing a second computer storage to compare hash values of metadata associated with photo files representing digital photographs on the second computer storage with values in a hash table and determining whether or not to store each photo file onto the first computer storage at least partially based thereon, the processor, responsive to a determination, based on a comparison of a first hash value of metadata associated with a first photo file and the values in the hash table, that the first hash value of metadata associated with the first photo file matches a value in the hash table, generates a user-perceptible message on the apparatus that the first file has been previously stored.
A computer readable storage medium bearing instructions executable by a computer processor to undertake logic comprising:
- comparing hashes of metadata of digital photographs against values in a hash table representing previously stored photographs on an archive data store to ensure that only previously unstored photos are copied onto the archive data store;
- comparing hashes of metadata of previously stored digital photographs against values in a hash table representing previously stored photographs on an archive data store;
- and
- responsive to a determination that redundant photo files exist in the archive data store, erasing at least one of the redundant photo files from the archive data store.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.