Patent Document ID: 20050065929
Application ID: 10973141
Patent Status: 0

Claim One:
1. A method comprising: generating a plurality of query vectors by extracting, for each query vector, one of a plurality of low-level features from an initial image selection; selecting a set of potentially relevant images based at least in part on distances between the plurality of query vectors and a plurality of feature vectors corresponding to low-level features of a plurality of images; receiving feedback regarding the relevance of one or more images of the set of potentially relevant images; generating a new plurality of query vectors based at least in part on the feedback; generating a weighting of feature elements based at least in part on the feedback; and selecting a new set of potentially relevant images based at least in part on both the weighting of feature elements and distances between the new plurality of query vectors and the plurality of feature vectors, wherein the selecting a new set of potentially relevant images comprises using a matrix in determining the distance between one of the new plurality of query vectors and one of the plurality of feature vectors, and further comprising dynamically selecting the matrix based on both a number of images in the set of potentially relevant images for which relevance feedback was input and a number of feature elements in the one feature vector if the number of images in the set of potentially relevant images for which relevance feedback was input is not less than the number of feature elements in the one feature vector, then using one matrix that transforms the query vector and the one feature vector to a higher-level feature space and then using another matrix that assigns a weight to each element of the transformed query vector and the transformed feature vector, and if the number of images in the set of potentially relevant images is less than the number of feature elements in the one feature vector, then using a matrix that assigns a weight to each element of the query vector and the one feature vector.