Patent ID: 7643597

Claim:
A method for selecting a subsequence of video frames from a sequence of video frames, comprising the steps of: (a) defining a distance function between video frames in the sequence of video frames using a processing unit; (b) defining an optimization criterion to express a feature of a plurality of subsequences of video frames selected from said sequence of video frames using a processing unit; (c) for a predetermined number of iterations: (i) defining a first subsequence of video frames and a second subsequence of video frames selected from said sequence of video frames using a processing unit; (ii) for each video frame in said second subsequence of video frames, determining a respective optimal value of the optimization criterion as determined between said video frame and each prior video frame in said first subsequence and storing information relating to the video frames associated with said optimal value using a processing unit; (d) determining an overall optimal value among the optimal values of the optimization criterion determined in step (c) using a processing unit; (e) retrieving the video frames stored in step (c) and associated with the overall optimal values of the optimization criterion using a processing unit.