Patent ID: 8583656

Claim:
A computer-implemented method of generating a covariance matrix associated with a media object, wherein the covariance matrix describes the covariance between data elements in sub-portions of the media object, the method executed by a computing system including a memory in which the media object is stored, and comprising: automatically identifying a plurality of relative displacements between pairs of data elements within spatial/temporal data of the media object; for each one of the plurality of relative displacements, automatically generating a corresponding covariance sum, to produce a plurality of covariance sums; storing the plurality of covariance sums in a lookup table in the memory, each of the covariance sums stored in the lookup table in association with its corresponding relative displacement to allow retrieval of the covariance sum given the relative displacement; automatically populating a covariance matrix associated with the media object by retrieving covariance sums from the lookup table using the relative displacements, and writing the retrieved covariance sums to the covariance matrix; and storing the covariance matrix in the memory of the computing system.