Patent ID: 7606442

Claim:
A method of processing image data representing an image, the method comprising steps stored on a tangible computer readable medium and performed by a processor, the steps comprising: generating saliency data for the image by determining a series of features of the image and using the determined features to generate a probability measure for each point of the image representative of a location of a subject of the image; processing the saliency data using respective ones of weighting functions of a plurality of spatial scales in order to determine the positions of regions of interest of the image at respective ones of the scales; generating response data for each scale representing the relative strength of response of the saliency data at the positions of the determined regions of interest to the function at that scale; for each determined region of interest, using the response data to determine a maximum response over all scales for that region; and using the position in the image corresponding to the determined maximum and the scale at which the maximum occurs to generate output image data representing a salient portion of the image at that scale and which corresponds to the region of interest in question.