Navigating digital content using visual characteristics of the digital content

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9448704-B1
Application number	US-201514699513-A
Country	US
Kind code	B1
Filing date	Apr 29, 2015
Priority date	Apr 29, 2015
Publication date	Sep 20, 2016
Grant date	Sep 20, 2016

Abstract

One or more embodiments of a digital content system allow a user to conveniently search and/or navigate through a collection of digital content items. In particular, a user can interact with a client device to search for and identify one or more digital content items within a collection of digital content items. For example, the digital content system may provide a photo from a collection of photos via a graphical user interface. The digital content system can receive a user input identifying a selection of one or more visual features within the photo. Based on the selected visual feature(s), the digital content system may identify photos from the collection of photos that include the identified visual feature(s) and provide access to the identified photos via the graphical user interface.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method comprising:
providing, via a graphical user interface, a display of a first digital content item from a collection of digital content items;
receiving a first user input with respect to the display of the first digital content item, the first user input identifying a selection of a first visual feature from the first digital content item;
identifying, by at least one processor, a subset of the collection of digital content items comprising a plurality of digital content items from the collection of digital content items that each have the first visual feature; and
providing access to the subset of the collection of digital content items that each have the first visual feature via the graphical user interface;
in response to receiving the first user input identifying the selection of the first visual feature, placing a graphical element over the display of the first digital content item at a location over the first digital content item corresponding to the first visual feature;
detecting a touch input on the graphical element placed over the display of the first digital content item; and
in response to detecting the touch input on the graphical element, advancing through the subset of the collection of digital content items that each have the first visual feature.

2. The method as recited in claim 1 , further comprising:
receiving a second user input identifying a selection of a second visual feature;
wherein receiving the first user input with respect to the display of the first digital content item comprises receiving the first user input selecting a face of a first person in the first digital content item;
wherein receiving the second user input identifying the selection of the second visual feature comprises receiving the second user input selecting a face of a second person; and
identifying, by the at least one processor, a second subset of the collection of digital content items comprising a plurality of digital content items from the collection of digital content items that each have the face of the first person and the face of the second person.

3. The method as recited in claim 2 , further comprising:
performing facial recognition on the collection of digital content items to identify faces of people in digital content items of the collection of digital content items; and
associating tags with the digital content items having the identified faces, the tags indicating people that have been identified in a given digital content item.

4. The method as recited in claim 3 , wherein identifying the subset of the collection of digital content items comprises:
identifying a first tag associated with a face of a first person and a second tag associated with a face of a second person; and
identifying digital content items from the collection of digital content items that include the first and second tags.

5. The method as recited in claim 1 , wherein:
placing the graphical element on the display of the first digital content item comprises placing the graphical element at a location within the first digital content item over the selected first visual feature;
detecting the touch input comprises detecting movement of an input object with respect to the graphical element; and
advancing through the subset of the collection of digital content items that each have the first visual feature comprises scrolling through the subset of the collection of digital content items based on the detected movement of the input object with respect to the graphical element.

6. The method as recited in claim 2 , further comprising: providing, via the graphical user interface and in response to detecting the touch input on the graphical element, a display of a second digital content item from the subset of the collection of digital content items that each have the first visual feature;
wherein receiving the second user input identifying the selection of the second visual feature comprises receiving the second user input with respect to the display of the second digital content item.

7. The method as recited in claim 2 , wherein:
receiving the first user input identifying the selection of the first visual feature of the first digital content item comprises detecting a first user interaction with respect to the display of the first digital content item, the first user interaction comprising a tap gesture with respect to a portion of the display of the first digital content item that includes the first visual feature of the first digital content item; and
receiving the second user input identifying the selection of the second visual feature comprises detecting a second user interaction with respect to the display of the first digital content item, the second user interaction comprising a tap gesture with respect to a portion of the display of the first digital content item that includes the second visual feature of the first digital content item.

8. The method as recited in claim 1 , wherein:
receiving the first user input identifying the selection of the first visual feature of the first digital content item comprises receiving the first user input selecting a type of object included within the first digital content item; and
identifying, by the at least one processor, the subset of the collection of digital content items from the collection of digital content items that each have the first visual feature comprises identifying digital content items from the collection of digital content items having at least one object corresponding to the type of object.

9. The method as recited in claim 8 , further comprising:
receiving a second user input identifying a selection of a second visual feature, wherein the second visual feature comprises a face of a person in the first digital image; and
identifying, by the at least one processor, a second subset of the collection of digital content items from the subset of the collection of digital content items that each have the face of the person and the at least one object corresponding to the type of object.

10. The method as recited in claim 1 , wherein providing access to the subset of the collection of digital content items comprising the plurality of identified digital content items that each have the first visual feature comprises generating the subset of digital content items having the first visual feature by filtering out all digital content items from the collection of digital content items lacking the first visual feature.

11. The method as recited in claim 1 , further comprising:
generating, for each of the subset of the collection of digital content items comprising the plurality of digital content items that each have the first visual feature, a first cropped portion that includes the first visual feature.

12. The method as recited in claim 11 , wherein advancing through the subset of the collection of digital content items comprising the plurality of identified digital content items that each have the first visual feature comprises providing, via the graphical user interface, a display of the first cropped portion of each of the subset of the collection of digital content items comprising the plurality of digital content items that have the first visual feature.

13. The method as recited in claim 12 , where providing, via the graphical user interface, the first cropped portion of each of the subset of the collection of digital content items comprising the plurality of digital content items that each have the first visual feature comprises overlaying the display of the first cropped portion over each corresponding digital content item of the subset of the collection of digi

Assignees

• Dropbox Inc

Inventors

• Belhumeur Peter N
• Kriegman David J
• Berg Thomas

Classifications

• G06F3/0482

  Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus · CPC title

• G06F3/04842 Primary

  Selection of displayed objects or displayed text elements (G06F3/0482 takes precedence) · CPC title

• G06F3/0485

  Scrolling or panning · CPC title

• G06F3/04845

  for image manipulation, e.g. dragging, rotation, expansion or change of colour · CPC title

• G06F3/04883

  for inputting data by handwriting, e.g. gesture or text · CPC title