Patent ID: 7737995
Filing Date: 2010-06-15
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
1. A computer-implemented process for a viewer to navigate unstructured or loosely structured image sets on a display screen, comprising: using a computer to perform the following process actions: accessing the image set being navigated; computing a cluster area, wherein the cluster area is defined as the maximum area on the viewer's display screen that can be used to display each cluster of a group of clusters given a maximum number of clusters that are to be displayed at any one time, an overall area on the display screen dedicated to displaying the clusters and a minimum spacing between clusters, and wherein the cluster area is the same size for each of the clusters; computing a maximum number of images that can be contained in each cluster given a minimum permissible image size and the cluster area, wherein the maximum number of images computed for a cluster is allowed to be different than the maximum number of images computed for another cluster while at the same time the cluster area remains the same size for each of the clusters; clustering the images of the accessed image set into sequential clusters having no more than the maximum number of images in each cluster; and displaying a group of consecutive clusters on the viewer's display screen, wherein number of clusters in the group of clusters does not exceed said number of clusters that are to be displayed at any one time.