Patent ID: 8805091

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for matching multiple images in real-time as the images are received at a server having one or more processors, comprising: receiving, at the one or more processors of the server, a first collection of photographic images and one or more additional collections of photographic images, each photographic image of the first collection of photographic images and the one or more additional collections of photographic images associated with metadata, wherein the metadata includes information related to at least a time of capture, a geolocation, and a field-of-view of a scene captured via an image capturing device, and further wherein at least one of the time of capture, the geolocation, or the field-of-view of each photographic image is different; clustering, by the one or more processors of the server, the photographic images in the first collection into one or more composite sets of photographic images, wherein the clustering is based on a comparison of the metadata associated with each photographic image in the first collection meeting a predetermined similarity threshold; determining, at the one or more processors of the server, an image overlap between each photographic image within each of the one or composite sets of photographic images, wherein an image overlap indicates a set of common features between a pair photographic images and includes at least a portion of an object captured in each of the photographic images of the pair; when the image overlap exceeds a predetermined image overlap threshold, matching, at the one or more processors of the server, the pair of photographic images, for all of the photographic images within each composite set of photographic images to form one or more composite images associated with composite metadata; and for each of the one or more additional collections of photographic images: determining, by the one or more processors of the server, if the additional collection is a candidate to be matched with any of the photographic images of the first collection of images, based on a metadata comparison; and matching, by the one or more processors of the server, the additional collection to composite images from the first collection of photographic images when an image overlap exceeds the predetermined image overlap threshold.