Mixed Media Reality Database Indexing Printed Digital Documents
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Solution Overview
Problem
There is a gap between the physical world of printed media and the virtual multimedia-based world, as users lack the tools to seamlessly integrate and exploit the benefits of both, such as the tactile feel of printed media and the portability and interactivity of digital media.
Innovation Solution
A Mixed Media Reality (MMR) system that uses an index table to associate printed and digital media, allowing for the creation of mixed media documents by extracting features from paper documents, capturing two-dimensional relationships, and computing hypotheses to link printed and digital content, enabling actions like retrieving information, executing commands, or displaying documents.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If printed media is used, then tactile feel and permanency are provided, but portability and ease of transmission are limited
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges printed media and digital media into a single mixed media document system. Printed documents are scanned and stored digitally, allowing users to access permanent physical documents with the convenience of digital portability and transmission through email or other digital channels.
Solution Approach 2:
The system creates digital copies of printed documents through scanning. These copies maintain the content and permanency of the original printed media while enabling easy portability and transmission without the physical constraints of the original document.
2Ease of operation
If digital media is used, then portability and ease of transmission are improved, but tactile feel and permanency are lost
Solution Approach 1:
The system combines the tactile experience of printed media with the portability of digital media. Users can scan physical documents to create digital versions that retain the original content's permanence while gaining digital convenience for portability and transmission.
Solution Approach 2:
Digital copies are created from printed documents, preserving the permanent record of the original while enabling the portability and ease of transmission characteristic of digital media. The copy maintains fidelity to the source document.
3Adaptability or versatility
If printed media and digital media are kept separate, then each medium maintains its advantages, but the ability to integrate and exploit benefits of both is lost
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates a unified mixed media document system that integrates printed and digital media. The system scans printed documents, stores them digitally with metadata, and enables seamless interaction between physical and digital realms through a common interface.
Solution Approach 2:
The system serves multiple functions: scanning printed documents, storing them digitally, managing metadata, enabling search and retrieval, and facilitating transmission. This multi-functional approach allows integration of different media types through a single versatile platform.
Data Source
AI summary
A Mixed Media Reality (MMR) system and associated techniques are disclosed. The MMR system provides mechanisms for forming a mixed media document that includes media of at least two types (e.g., printed paper as a first medium and digital content and/or web link as a second medium). In one particular embodiment, the MMR system includes a content-based retrieval database configured with an index table to represent two-dimensional geometric relationships between objects extracted from a printed document in a way that allows look-up using a text-based index. A ranked set of document, page and location hypotheses can be computed given data from the index table. The techniques effectively transform features detected in an image patch into textual terms (or other searchable features) that represent both the features themselves and the geometric relationship between them. A storage facility can be used to store additional characteristics about each document image patch.