Patent ID: 8112428

Claim:
A computer-implemented method comprising: for each particular image in a set of images, generating a separate ranked list of other images in the set of images by ranking each of the other images based at least in part on visual similarity of each of the other images to the particular image, thereby generating a plurality of ranked lists that includes a separate ranked list for each image in the set of images; for each particular ranked list in the plurality of ranked lists, giving each other image than the particular image for which the particular ranked list was generated a voting score that is based at least in part on said other image's rank in the particular ranked list; for at least one image in the set of images, generating a total voting score for the at least one image at least in part by adding up voting scores given to the at least one image in each ranked list of the plurality of ranked lists; selecting said at least one image from the set of images to be a particular representative image based at least in part on the total voting score generating for said at least one image; generating a document that contains said particular representative image; and storing the document on a volatile or non-volatile computer-readable storage medium; wherein the particular representative image is a first representative image further comprising: after selecting said at least one image to be the first representative image and assigning the first representative image to a first image cluster, determining a first set of non-representative images in whose ranked lists of the plurality of ranked lists the first representative image occurs within a specified to portion of those non-representative image's ranked lists; and assigning images in the first set of non-representative images to a first image cluster that contains the first representative image.