Patent ID: 8407223

Claim:
An information discovery network system comprising: one or more cameras; a track module for obtaining video-based tracks, the tracks having a first number of items; a similarity module connected to the track module, the similarity module computes similarities among characteristics of the first number of items within the tracks and provides a similarity matrix for each characteristic of the characteristics using the computed similarities; a portrayal module connected to the similarity module, the portrayal module for constructing a similarity portrayal having nodes representing the items with edges between the nodes having weights in a form of vectors indicating similarities of the characteristics of the items at ends of the edges; an augmentation module connected to the portrayal module, the augmentation module providing a multi-objective portrayal by augmenting the edges of the similarity portrayal with temporal and spatial properties from the tracks covering the first number of items; a cluster module connected to the augmentation module, the cluster module for partitioning the multi-objective portrayal into clusters; and a merger module connected to the cluster module and the track module, the merger module for merging the tracks according to the clusters from the track module; and wherein a multi-objective partitioning algorithm determines a cluster threshold based on the weights of a vector of the vectors to determine whether the items of an edge are to be clustered with each other; a weight of said each characteristic of the characteristics is multiplied by a factor to result in a product; the factor is a number which is relative to an impact of a characteristic for a track; and products of the weights of the characteristics and the spatial and temporal properties, and factors are determinate of an importance of an edge for clustering.