Patent ID: 8520909

Claim:
A method of semantically characterizing the semantic attributes and contents of digital or non-digital images by using characterization rules to determine image contents and properties from image acquisition metadata, data affiliated with the image, and/or the image itself, the image, image acquisition metadata and data affiliated with the image being stored on a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium, and using probabilistic or deterministic relationships among the metadata and/or affiliated data to create a semantic image characterization which is used to enrich pre-existing metadata and/or affiliated data or is used to index the image contents in a computer readable storage medium in order to facilitate future retrieval of the image using semantic terms via a data processing apparatus, wherein the image acquisition metadata is selected from at least one of focal length, exposure time, relative aperture, flash information, ISO setting, angle of view, subject distance, timestamp, and GPS information, and wherein the characterization rules comprise one or more rules which infer image contents and properties by determining that when focal length belongs to a specific set of values, and exposure time belongs to a specific set of values, and subject distance belongs to a specific set of values, and timestamp belongs to a specific set of values, and relative aperture belongs to a specific set of values, that the image is of a certain type of scene or contains certain types of contents or having certain properties.