METHOD OF FACE INDEXING FOR EFFICIENT BROWSING AND SEARCHING OFP EOPLE IN VIDEO

摘要

A method and apparatus for generating an index (250) of at least one class of objects appearing in a collection of images (210, 230) for use in searching or browsing (240) for particular members of the class, by: processing (260) the collection of images to extract therefrom features characteristic of the class of objects; and grouping the images in groups according to extracted features helpful in identifying individual members of the class of objects. In the described preferred embodiments, the collection of images represents a sequence of video frames, identified by the starting and ending frames and containing face segments characteristic of a respective face. Audio characteristic data and/or annotations (270, 280) may also be associated with the face tracks.