Patent Document ID: 9122927
Application ID: 13585645
Patent Status: 1

Claim One:
1. A computer-implemented method for generating an image tour based on an image set, the method comprising: constructing an image graph comprising a plurality of primary image nodes and a plurality of secondary image nodes based on the image set and edges associated with pairs of image nodes of the plurality of the primary image nodes and the plurality of the secondary image nodes, wherein the plurality of the primary image nodes and the plurality of the secondary image nodes correspond to images within the image set associated with a point of interest photographed from various viewpoint positions, viewpoint orientations, and fields of view; determining, for each pair of primary image nodes of the plurality of the primary image nodes, a pruned sub graph comprising the pair of primary image nodes and a first subset of the plurality of the secondary image nodes, wherein the first subset of the plurality of the secondary image nodes is selected based on rendering costs associated with transitioning between the pair of primary image nodes and the plurality of the secondary image nodes, each rendering cost comprising a cost of transitioning between a first image node of an edge and a second image node of the edge, and excluding any cost for transitioning between a pair of edges, wherein the rendering cost encourages high quality transition between image nodes; determining an order of the plurality of the primary image nodes based on the rendering costs in the pruned subgraphs; splicing the pruned sub graphs together according to the determined order of the plurality of the primary image nodes to generate a spliced graph; determining a path through the spliced graph, the path comprising the plurality of the primary image nodes in the determined order and a second subset of the plurality of the secondary image nodes selected based on the rendering costs and turning costs associated with transitioning between pairs of the edges in the spliced graph, wherein the turning costs encourage smooth turns of the image tour's camera between consecutive edges; and providing an ordered subset of the image set based on the determined path for display as the image tour on a client device.