SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR PROVIDING PERSONALIZED ALBUM

PRODUCTION

Technical Field The present invention relates to a system and method for manufacturing a custom album, and more particularly, to a system and method for manufacturing a custom album which may relate to a server providing a community of an organization, or a group such as a school, to add tag information to multimedia contents to generate library information, generate an automatic page based on the generated library information, and provide a custom album for both individuals and organizations to members in the community.

Background Art

In a conventional method for manufacturing a school graduation album, the graduation album is constructed by either a photographer designated by a school or by a manager from a partner company. When there is occurrence of a major event or ceremony, the photographer or the manager would physically visit the school to collect images, multimedia contents, and other materials related with the major event or ceremony, and manage the collected materials. Also, distribution of a school graduation album was limited in its incapability to consider personal characteristics of each student. All albums would be decorated with the collected contents in an identical manner, and be uniformly distributed to all students of the school.

Also, in the conventional method for manufacturing an album, it is difficult to manufacture a custom album for each member in a predetermined organization since there is no information regarding unique characteristics of each member and each organization of collected materials.

Disclosure of Invention Technical Goals The present invention is provided to improve the problems of the conventional art, and provides a system and method for providing, to a member of a community, a custom album which stores multimedia contents such as picture images in a

community-providing server in relation to an organization or a group such as a school, receives tag information about the multimedia contents from the members of the community, and automatically arranges the tag multimedia contents on a custom space of the custom album via an album generation unit, based on a template and library information regarding generating of a custom album.

The present invention also provides a system and method for providing, to a member of a community, a custom album which systematically stores collected multimedia contents of the community based on library information including member information, organization information, and custom album information of the community. The present invention also provides a system and method for providing, to a member of a community, a custom album which is provided by a personalized custom service via an automatic tool for album generation by providing an album generation unit for a custom album, and reduces required human resources for mass production of the custom album. The present invention also provides a system and method for providing, to a member of a community, a custom album which may increase satisfaction of the member by flexibly dealing with personalized requests and amendment requests of the community member in an organization, or a group such as a school, via an album generation unit related to a community-providing server. The present invention also provides, to a member of a community, a system and method for providing a custom album which, instead of a conventional characterless organization album, provides a custom album with personal characteristics reflected for the members of the community.

The present invention also provides a system and method for providing, to a member of a community, a custom album which improves satisfaction of the members for the custom album by providing a personalized custom album to the members even when there is no manipulation of the member.

Technical solutions In order to achieve the above objectives, and to solve the problems from the conventional art, according to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided a system for manufacturing a custom album including: a community-providing server

providing multimedia contents to a member of a community, and generating tag multimedia contents using tag information received from the member to store the generated tag multimedia contents; and an album generation unit receiving tag multimedia contents, member information, and community organization information in relation to the community-providing server, generating library information using the member information and the community organization information, and generating a custom album including the tag multimedia contents based on the library information.

Also, the album generation unit of the present invention transmits the custom album to the community-providing server, and the community-providing server provides the member with a custom space.

Also, the community providing server of the system for manufacturing the custom album of the present invention server updates the custom album by receiving amendment information regarding the custom space from the member, and the album generation unit synchronizes the updated custom album in relation to the community- providing server.

Also, the tag multimedia contents of the present invention is generated by including the tag information in the multimedia contents, the custom album may be a graduation album, an club album, or a advertising album.

Also, the library information of the present invention may further include custom album information.

Also, the community-providing server of the present invention include: a member management database storing and managing the member information and the community organization information; and a contents database storing and managing the tag information, the tag multimedia contents, and the custom album. Also, the album generation unit in the system for manufacturing the custom album of the present invention includes: a template editor module managing a template which is selected to generate the custom album, and providing an application capable of editing the template; a library module managing the tag multimedia contents according to the library information; and an editor module generating an automatic space by automatically applying the tag multimedia contents to the template according to the library information.

Also, the album generation unit in the system for manufacturing the custom

album of the present invention further includes: a server-related editor module providing a device capable of editing the automatic space in relation to the community providing sever.

Also, the library information of the present invention includes classification system information to generate the custom album, the classification system information comprises classification information according to an organization, an event, or a type of multimedia contents, and the automatic space includes a space for each member and a space for each community organization.

Also, the library module of the album generation unit of the present invention provides a search module with respect to the tag multimedia contents based on the classification system.

Also, the template editor module of the album generation unit of the present invention assigns the template metadata classification information.

Also, the template editor module of the present invention assigns to the template an order and ordering rules of the automatic space via a story board.

Also, the automatic space of the present invention provides the custom album by including spaces for each member and for each community organization.

Also, the library module of the album generation unit of the present invention provides a device capable of editing the tag multimedia contents or affecting the tag multimedia contents.

According to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method for manufacturing a custom album including: providing multimedia contents to a member of a community via a community-providing server; generating tag multimedia contents by receiving tag information from the member via the community-providing server; and an album generation unit receiving the tag multimedia contents, member information, and community organization information in relation to the community-providing server, and generating library information using the member information and the community organization information; and generating a custom album including the tag multimedia contents based on the library information. In an aspect of the present invention, the generating of the tag multimedia contents by receiving tag information received from the member via the community- providing server generates the tag multimedia contents by processing the tag

information in the multimedia contents.

In an aspect of the present invention, the generating of the custom album further includes: generating an automatic space by automatically applying the tag multimedia contents to a predetermined template where the library information is reflected.

In an aspect of the present invention, the generating of the automatic space by automatically applying the tag multimedia contents may include: transmitting the custom album including the automatic space to the community-providing server, the community-providing server providing the member with a custom space on the custom album; and the community-providing server updating the custom album by receiving amendment information regarding the custom space from the member, and the updating of the custom album in the community-providing server may further include synchronizing the updated custom album in relation to the community-providing server.

Advantageous Effects

According to the present invention, there is provided a system and method for providing, to a member of a community, a custom album which stores multimedia contents such as picture images in a community-providing server in relation to an organization and a group such as a school, receives tag information about the multimedia contents from the members of the community, and automatically arranges the tag multimedia contents on a custom space of the custom album via an album generation unit, based on a template and library information regarding generating of a custom album.

Also, according to the present invention, there is provided a system and method for providing, to a member of a community, a custom album which systematically stores collected multimedia contents of the community based on library information including member information, organization information, and custom album information of the community.

Also, according to the present invention, there is provided a system and method for providing, to a member of a community, a custom album which provides a personalized custom service via an automatic tool for album generation by providing an album generation unit for a custom album, and reduces required human resources for

mass production of the custom album.

Also, according to the present invention, there is provided a system and method for providing, to a member of a community, a custom album which may increase satisfaction of the member by flexibly dealing with personalized requests and amendment requests of the community member in an organization and a group such as a school, via an album generation unit related to a community-providing server.

Also, according to the present invention, there is provided a system and method for providing, to a member of a community, a custom album which, instead of a conventional characterless organization album, provides a custom album with personal characteristics reflected for the members of the community.

Also, according to the present invention, there is provided a system and method for providing, to a member of a community, a custom album which improves satisfaction of the members for the custom album by providing a personalized custom album to the members even when there is no manipulation of the member.

Brief Description of Drawings

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a system for manufacturing a custom album according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention; FIG. 2 is a flowchart illustrating a method for manufacturing a custom album using a system for manufacturing a custom album according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating a user application provided by a template editor module according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention; FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating a user application of a library module according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention; and

FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating an editor module user application according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

Best Mode for Carrying Out the Invention

Hereinafter, a sensor network according to exemplary embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the attached illustrations.

In the description of the present invention, the details to a related notification function or to its configuration may be omitted in the case such details are contrary to intentions of the present invention. Also, terminologies used in this specification are defined to most appropriately describe the exemplary embodiments of the present invention, and may differ by user, intentions of the manager or by customs of which the present intention belongs to. Consequently, definition for the terminologies shall be determined by overall contents of this specification.

"Space" in the specification of the present invention is not limited to pages with physical appearances of paper materials, but also includes of all other forms such as an electronic page where it allows viewing of the attached multimedia contents.

"Custom album" in the specification of the present invention is not limited to an album of printed matter, but also includes an electronic album and should be defined for an album personalized for each member of a community.

"Community" in the specification of the present invention is to include organizations and groups such as a school.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a system for manufacturing a custom album according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 1 , the system for manufacturing the custom album according to the present invention includes a community-providing server 100 and a album generation unit 200.

The community-providing server 100 provides multimedia contents to members of a community and generates tag multimedia contents using the tag information received from the members. The community-providing server 100 provides a community which may be offered via a website, and individuals related with a predetermined organization join the community. As described above, the community may be organizations and groups such as a school.

The tag multimedia contents are generated by adding the tag information to the multimedia contents. For this, the community-providing server 100 may further include a member management database 110 which stores and manages member information and the community organization information, a contents database 120 which stores and manages the tag information, the tag multimedia contents, and the

custom album.

The album generation unit 200 receives the tag multimedia contents, member information, and community organization information for organizations and groups such as a school, and generates library information from the member information and the community organization information. The library information may further include custom album information. Based on the library information, the album generation unit 200 generates a custom album which includes the tag multimedia contents received from the community-providing server 100. Also, the album generation unit 200 transmits the custom album to the community-providing server 100, and the community-providing server 100 provides the member with a personalized custom service so that the member may view the custom space. The members of the community may view the custom spaces from the community-providing server 100 and amend the custom spaces, and the community-providing server 100 receives amendment information for the custom spaces to update the custom album. The album generation unit 200 communicates with the community-providing server 100 which has updated the custom album to synchronize the updated custom album, and eventually generates the custom album. The custom album may be a graduation album, a club album, or an advertising album. According to the system for manufacturing the custom album of the present invention, identical albums are not distributed to all members as usually distributed with general graduation albums, but custom album which includes personalized album pages may be provided.

The album generation unit 200 includes a template editor module 210 which is selected to generate the custom album, a library module 220 which manages the tag multimedia contents according to the library information, and an editor module 230 which automatically generates an automatic space by automatically applying the tag multimedia contents to the templates according to the library information. The automatic space includes a space for each member and a space for each community organization regarding an organization and group such as a school, the library information includes classification system information to generate the custom album, and the classification system information includes information for each of organization, event, and type of multimedia.

The template editor module 210 assigns metadata classification information to

the template to provide templates consisting of themes for various configuration usages, and assigns to the template an order and ordering rules of the automatic space via a story board. The storyboard arranges space elements for such various configuration usages. The template editor module 210 may provide a user application to implement the above described functions. The user application provided the template editor module 210 will be described by referring to FIG. 3.

FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating a user application provided by the template editor module 210 of FIG. 1 according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention. The user application may be used by a professional album production company or a partner company of a community related to organizations and groups such as a school. The template editor user application provides a list 410 for automatic spaces, which are arranged in orders and ordering rules of space to be included in the custom album, and includes a storyboard (not shown) which shows orders and ordering rules of space of the automatic space. Also, the template editor user application provides spaces for arranging space elements 430 for the automatic space, and may arrange the space elements 430 on the automatic space using a drag and drop scheme in the case a user is in a personal computer (PC) based working environment. Also, the template editor application includes a providing device 420 to provide community organization information for the space elements 430 and resource information, and includes a modifying device 440 to modify establishment of attributes of the resource. Also, the template editor application provides an editing device 450 for the space elements 430 to provide theme functions for various configuration usages. By using the template editor user application, templates of various designs are provided to satisfy the user and the partner companies, thereby manufacturing a custom album in various types and manufacturing the custom album capable of being applied to various circumstances in spite of a single design concept.

Referring back to FIG. 1, the library module 220 of FIG. 1 may provide a searching device for the tag multimedia contents based on the classification system. Also, the library module 220 provides a device capable of editing the tag multimedia contents or having an effect on the tag multimedia contents. The effect may refer to crop, adjust, texture, caption, filtering, image merging functions and other forms of effects desired by the member or the partner company. The library module 220 may

provide a user application to implement the above mentioned functions. The user application provided by the library module 220 of the present invention will be described by referring to FIG. 4.

FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating a user application of a library module according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 4, the library module user application of the present invention provides a managing device 510 capable of managing the multimedia contents based on events with regard to the multimedia contents, and provides a searching device 520 capable of managing the multimedia contents for each of different events 531, 532, and 533, and capable of performing various searches based on classification information which includes classification information according to each organization, each event, and each period with respect to the multimedia contents. Also, the library module user application provides an organizing device 512 which integrates the information based on the classification information according to each organization, each event, and each period with respect to the multimedia contents, and a device 513 which provides the integrated information according to each area. Additionally, the library module user application synchronizes the multimedia contents and the tag multimedia contents with the community-providing server-correct, amends the multimedia contents by the member of the community via the community-providing server, or maintains library information regarding the tag multimedia contents, thereby immediately dealing with selection of the multimedia contents and reducing human resources required to manufacture the custom album. Also, the manufactured custom album may be systematically maintained by systematically managing metadata of the multimedia contents. Referring back to FIG. 1, an editor module 230 automatically generates an automatic page and consequently generates a custom album by automatically applying the tag multimedia contents to the library information. The custom album is a personalized custom album for members in the community in relation to organizations or groups such as a school. The editor module 230 provides a user application to implement the above described functions. The user application provided by the editor module 230 of the present invention will be described by referring to FIG. 5.

FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating an editor module user application according to

an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 5, the editor module user application generates a custom album including an automatic page which is generated by automatically applying the tag multimedia contents to the library information. The custom album may include a printed material, and also include an electronic album. Also, as described above, the custom album may include a personalized album for each member in a community. The editor module user application provides a list for a custom space 610, both for members and community organization where the member belongs to. In the case the custom album is a school graduation album, the list for the custom space 610 may list custom spaces for all grades 611, a common element 612, a class 613, and a member 614. Also, the editor module user application may provide a list of space elements 620, which configures a custom space, and a searching device 630 for a user, that is a partner company, to search for the desired multimedia contents. Also, the editor module user application provides a modification device 640 to amend an attribute of the space elements, thereby actively dealing with custom requests from each member when manufacturing the custom album.

Referring back to FIG. 1 , the album generation unit 200 of the present invention may further include a server-related editor module 240 which provides a device for the member to amend the automatic space in relation to the community-providing server 100. The server-related editor module 240 automatically generates a custom space which is included in the custom album and provides the member with the generated custom space having connected to the community-providing server 100, and enables the member to select and replace a template. Also, the space element configured on the automatic space may be replaced by the member with multimedia contents which is being stored by the member, and the member is encouraged to participate in generating of an album for organizations and groups such as a school, thereby promoting satisfaction of the member. According to the present invention, it is possible to provide a custom album with personal characteristics reflected of a member in a community instead of a group album without personal characteristics, and at the same time, to improve satisfaction of the member with respect to the album by providing the custom album to the member even when there is no manipulation of the member.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart illustrating a method for manufacturing a custom album

using a system for manufacturing a custom album according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 2, multimedia contents is provided to a member of a community of organizations or groups such as school a community-providing server in operation S310.

In operation process S320, tag multimedia contents are generated using tag information received from the member via the community-providing server. That is, the tag information is processed onto the multimedia contents to generate the tag multimedia contents. The multimedia contents may be multimedia content which is being stored by the member or be multimedia contents generated by a partner company of the community of organizations or groups such as a school. The tag multimedia contents are generated by including the tag information in the multimedia contents.

In operation S330, an album generation unit receives the tag multimedia contents, member information, and community organization information in relation to the community-providing server, and generates library information using the member information and the community organization information. The library information may further include custom album information.

For the album generation unit to generate the custom album which includes the tag multimedia contents based on the library information, an automatic space is generated by automatically applying the tag multimedia contents to a selected template according to the library information in operation S340, and the custom album including the automatic space is transmitted to the community-providing server and the community-providing server provides members with a custom space on the custom album in operation S350. The automatic page includes spaces for each member and each organization, the library information includes classification system information to generate the custom album, and the classification system information includes classification information according to each organization, each event, or each multimedia contents.

Afterwards, it is determined whether amendment information for the custom space is received from the member in the community in operation S360, and when the amendment information regarding the custom space is received, the community- providing server updates the custom album using the amendment information for the

custom space received from the member in operation S370. Specifically, through a server-related editor module of the album generation unit, the custom space included in the custom album is generated and provided to a member having connected to the community-providing server, and upon receiving amendment information regarding the selection or replacement for the template, consequently the custom albums are updated. The amendment information may include information regarding replacement of the space element with the multimedia contents which is being stored by the member.

The album generation unit synchronizes the custom album in relation to the community-providing server in operation S380, and the album generation unit finally generates the custom album including the tag multimedia contents based on the library information in operation S390.

Conversely, it is determined whether the amendment information for the custom space is received from the member in the community in operation S360, in the case the amendment information for the custom space is not received from the member, the album generation unit finally generates a custom album including the tag multimedia contents based on the library information. The custom album is not limited to printed materials, also includes an electronic album which is personalized for each member in the community. As opposed to the conventional characterless group album, the custom album according to present invention may provide a custom album with personal characteristics reflected of a member in an organization or a group of a school and thus improve satisfaction of the member with respect to the album by providing the custom album to the members even when there is no manipulation of the member.

The method for manufacturing a custom album according to the above- described exemplary embodiments may be recorded in computer-readable media including program instructions to implement various operations embodied by a computer. The media may also include, alone or in combination with the program instructions, data files, data structures, and the like. Examples of computer-readable media include magnetic media such as hard disks, floppy disks, and magnetic tape; optical media such as CD ROM disks and DVD; magneto-optical media such as optical disks; and hardware devices that are specially configured to store and perform program instructions, such as read-only memory (ROM), random access memory (RAM), flash memory, and the like. The media may also be a transmission medium such as optical

or metallic lines, wave guides, and the like, including a carrier wave transmitting signals specifying the program instructions, data structures, and the like. Examples of program instructions include both machine code, such as produced by a compiler, and files containing higher level code that may be executed by the computer using an interpreter. The described hardware devices may be configured to act as one or more software modules in order to perform the operations of the above-described embodiments of the present invention.

Although a few embodiments of the present invention have been shown and described, the present invention is not limited to the described embodiments. Instead, it would be appreciated by those skilled in the art that changes may be made to these embodiments without departing from the principles and spirit of the invention, the scope of which is defined by the claims and their equivalents.