Patent ID: 9570111
Date: 2017-02-14
CPC Classifications: G06K,G06T,G11B

Claim:
1. A system for clustering images, comprising: a plurality of mobile devices for acquiring an initial plurality of still or video images including a scene of interest, acquiring an additional plurality of still or video images including the scene of interest, and transmitting the acquired initial plurality of still or video images and the additional plurality of still or video images to a cloud-based server over a mobile data network; and a computer system for hosting the cloud-based server, constructing a 3D model of the scene of interest based on the acquired initial plurality of still or video images, fitting each of the additional plurality of still or video images to the 3D model, estimating a line-of-sight for each of the additional plurality of still or video images based on the corresponding fitting to the 3D model, and clustering the additional plurality of still or video images into a plurality of clusters according to the estimated line-of-sight of each of the plurality of additional images, wherein the computer system is configured to cluster the additional plurality of still or video images by: estimating a 3D ray for each estimated line-of-sight; calculating a shortest distance between each pair of estimated 3D rays by analyzing only pairs of 3D rays that converge and calculating a distance of a line segment that connects an origin of a first 3D ray of each pair of 3D rays and intersects a second 3D ray of each pair of 3D rays perpendicularly; and clustering the 3D rays according to the shortest distances.