WO2011148270A1

WO2011148270A1 - Visualization shopping portal (vizushop)

Info

Publication number: WO2011148270A1
Application number: PCT/IB2011/051356
Authority: WO
Inventors: Prasad Thushara Peiris
Original assignee: Prasad Thushara Peiris
Priority date: 2010-05-26
Filing date: 2011-03-30
Publication date: 2011-12-01

Abstract

This invention relates to the arts of Electronic Commerce, Image Processing, Artificial Intelligence, Social Networking and industries of Information Technology, Fashion, Architectural, Interior Decoration and Landscaping. The invention, connect traders and customers and provide opportunities for the customers to select the best possible product to suit his/her taste with the intended environment. This is achieved by enabling the customers to visualize a chosen product with his/her self or on behalf of somebody else or with the intended environment where the product to be located/used. Customers share their visualized images with the community using the social network module. In addition, it enables to understand and propagate customer's liking behavior with regard to aesthetic values of products. Through integration of the social network and commercial product portal the vendors have access to much larger customer base. Visu¬ alization is enabled by means of overlapping 3D imagery (Vizu Object) over an uploaded picture of oneself (own, friend, family member etc.), or a place (house, garden, office etc.). The Vizu Object of the product has characteristics namely, Visual Center, Visual Contour and Visual Resolution. Customers use the reference image tag when they take photographs for visualization. Thereby, visualization process automatically recognizes actual dimensions of the uploaded pictures allowing real size visualization of the object.

Description

VISUALIZATION SHOPPING PORTAL (VizuSHOP)

Technical Field

The invention, Visualization Shopping Portal; VizuSHOP relates to e-commerce and social networking which create a meeting place for customers and traders integrating technologies such as social networking, image processing and artificial intelligence.

Background Art

The product is built based on natural psychological concept of visualization. Introducing this product, the inventor attempts to share his natural visualization ability with rest of the world by means of electronic commerce. Contrary to the existing e-commerce products, VizuSHOP helps the customer to visualize products in its real environment to trigger his/her intuitive decision making ability rather than rational, sequential product selection methods available in existing e-commerce products. Hence, the VizuSHOP will tap the 'Customer's Decision Black Box' which is difficult to parameterize using the presently used product dimensions such as price, size, colour etc.

Number of efforts have been made to address the visualization effects on the Internet by way of virtual reality utilizing advanced technologies. The Bodymetrics (http://www.bodymetrics.com - WO/2001/046911 - SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR VISUALIZING PERSONAL APPEARANCE) proposes the visualization for scaling purpose with regard to apparel especially ladies jeans. The VizuSHOP facilitates online visualization of range of products especially products which are having high level of aesthetic features. Also unlike the Bodymetrics, VizuSHOP customers are not required to visit scanning locations. The Vizu tag provides an alternate solution for customers to scale reference their images without physically visiting vendor's facility. In contrarily to Bodymetrics, VizuSHOP portal creates a virtual meeting place for multiple vendors and social communities.

"A method and system for online, real time, interactive collaborative visualization - WO2010/009281 A2" too provides an online platform for real time collaboration with visualization. Instead of the art board in the above system, VizuSHOP provides a three dimensional visualization framework (VizuPAD) to visualize, products with their natural visual aesthetics. The products are converted to three-Dimensional objects, named as Vizu object having three key parameters namely visual contour, visual center and visual resolution. Contrarily to the above method VizuSHOP firstly enable a customer to visualize the product with his/her personal liking. Once a customer visualizes a particular product with its intended environment, customer may publish a photo capture of the visualization in the VizuSHOP social network to instigate the recommendations and suggestions (collaborations) from his/her social community.

Technical Problem

Present e-commerce systems provide mainly rational selection process with limited parameters such as price, color and size etc. They hardly derive aesthetic values of products, especially visual aesthetics while shopping over the Internet. Further, there is a huge gap exists where customers cannot match the product with his/her inner taste as the customers are not facilitated to match the products with the intended environment. In addition to personal preference for a product, the social influence on a particular person with regard to a selected product effects on the buying decision. Therefore there is a need of a platform where customers are enabled with the ability of visualization of different products from different venders while accommodating customers social influence for the product.

Technical Solution

The key characteristics of the portal of its visualization part in which customers are given ability of visualizing by means of information technology tools such as 3D image processing, artificial intelligence and web technologies. Visualization is enabled by means of overlapping 3D imagery over an uploaded picture of oneself (own, friend, family member etc.), place (house, garden, office etc.). 3D Imagery of the product has characteristics namely Visual Contour, Visual Center and Visual Resolution. Customers can scale their images using the reference image tag. Thereby visualization process automatically recognizes actual dimensions of the uploaded pictures allowing real size visualization of the object. The visualization will enable customers feel aesthetic values of the product in accordance with the intended environment of its use. Thereby customer can holistically match his/her taste enticing his/her intuitive decision process which is not facilitated in the present e-commerce.

The VizuSHOP portal constitutes of a social network, commercial vendor sites which create a virtual meeting place for customers and vendors also the customer's social community to influence products in the visualization shopping portal.

Advantageous Effects

The invention promotes aesthetic values of the product in e-commerce and thereby enhances the sale of products in fashion, architectural, interior decoration and landscaping industries.

Customers can share their visualized images with the community using the social network module. In addition, it enables to understand and propagate customer's liking behaviour with regard to aesthetic values of products creating an enormous pull factor for the products. Integration of the social network and commercial product portals, the vendors can access much larger customer base.

The VizuSHOP's visualization feature enable customers to select products according to their liking irrespective of the geographical boundaries. Hence VizuSHOP contribute to augment sale of the products globally.

The VizuSHOP creates new job opportunities in the fields of Information Technology, photography, fashion, interior decoration, handicraft and furniture industries.

The proposed visualization based shopping portal creates a new new paradigm in product selling and advertising in electronic commerce. On top of the proposed framework number of new business models and associated technologies to be evolved. Virtual fashion shows, online modelling are some of the new business models going to be emerged with VizuSHOP.

Description of Drawings

The invention is further described in the detailed description that follows, by reference to the noted drawings by way of illustrative embodiments of the invention, in which like reference numerals represent similar parts throughout the drawings. The invention is not limited to the precise arrangements shown in the drawings:

Figure 01 is a schematic illustration of the preferred embodiment of the visualization shopping portal exemplified with a user (Rebecca), visualizing a product in VizuSHOP, her affiliated social behaviour and the commercial activities in accordance with the present invention;

Figure 02 illustrates a preferred embodiment of the Image Referencing Standard which constitutes to create aesthetic Vizu objects in accordance with the present invention;

Figure 03 illustrates a preferred embodiment of the principles used in creating Vizu Objects for visualization process namely Visual Center, Visual Contour and Visual resolution in accordance with the present invention;

Figure 04 depicts a preferred embodiment of a method for visualizing a product over the Internet by means of visualization shopping portal with the product's intended environment in accordance with the present invention;

Figure 05 illustrates the method of rescaling customer uploaded photograph to its true size and visualizing an object with the customer uploaded image, keeping their relative true sizes constant in accordance with the present invention;

Figure 06 illustrates the home page of the Visualization Shopping Portal System in accordance with the present invention;

Figure 07 illustrates the item selection from an exemplary virtual vendor showcase (VizuCraft) hosted in the Visualization Shopping Portal System in accordance with the present invention;

Figure 08 illustrates the VizuPAD; the visualizing sub system which enable users to perform visualization activity in accordance with the present invention;

Figure 09 illustrates photo capturing of a user's visualization in the VizuPAD in accordance with the present invention;

Figure 10 illustrates publishing of photo captured visualization to the Visualization Shopping Portal System's social networking sub system; user's wall in accordance with the present invention;

Figure 11 illustrates purchasing of a visualized product at a traditional e-commerce site of a exemplary vendor (VizuCraft);

Figure 12 illustrates uploading of user's images to the Visualization Shopping Portal System;

Figure 13 illustrates the panel given to the user for selecting the specific Vizu tag, that the user utilized for image referencing in the Visualization Shopping Portal System in accordance with the present invention.

The foregoing and other features, advantages of the invention will become more apparent from the following description and from the claims.

Mode for Invention

The Visualization Shopping Portal (VizuSHOP) provides visualization service to the customer, where they can virtually match the selected product in the intended environment. Thereby customers can experience best suited product amongst vast market without physical presence at the shopping malls. In addition a customer can evaluate the perception of his/ her friends and the community for his/ her selections by way of publishing the visualized images in the VizuSHOP social network. Product vendors too are customers of the VizuSHOP. Vendors are getting chance to tap the mass market where aesthetic values of the products are appreciated. More over the social network will identify the behavioral / loyalty patterns of the customers especially with regard to aesthetic values of the products. VizuSHOP will provide such market data to the vendors where they can come up with better marketing strategies to increase the market share.

The visualization framework enables the customer to sense the aesthetic value of the product by way of virtual reality. The customers can virtually bring the product to its environment where it is going to be used. This feature is achieved by manipulating objects in multiple layers of the web browser. During the visualization process, a customer performs activities such as scaling, rotating, tilting, changing of the colors, and changing of the model. Once the customer is satisfied with the visualization, he/she may capture a picture of that which could be used for publishing in the social network or saving in the portal or local personal computer.

The FIG.01 embodies the schematic arrangement of the Visualization Shopping Portal; VizuSHOP. The VizuSHOP interlink user's personal domain 1, his/her social domain 2, and the commercial domain 3 where customers and traders virtually meet in the Internet. As depicted in the, venders who sell products on the traditional vendor portals can register with visualization shopping portal. While doing so, they can maintain their existing websites. The products which are going to be hosted in the portal be converted to Vizu Objects by the portal operator. The portal operator has advertising management, portal administration, and market research and development sections in addition to image processing section. The computer systems which form the visualization shopping portal is connected to the Internet. Therefore, the customers and vendors can access it online. The customer interface of the portal is a social network, where users maintain their accounts freely and create linkage with their family members, friends and the portal community. Users browse the product by means of virtual shopping and visualize interested products. Once the customer is satisfied with the product, he/she initiates purchase request, which is directly catered by the respective vendor. Thereby, the portal provides the visualization services while the vendors cater for traditional e-commerce transactions in completing the payment and product delivery. The vendor bears the cost for the visualization services offered by the visualization shopping portal on behalf of the users, based on a charging mechanism implemented according to the lifetime of the products hosted on the visualization shopping portal.

The social network in the portal creates a community loyal to aesthetic values of the products. The free memberships and free visualization attract vast community with varied taste and varying cultural and national backgrounds. Once the customers publish the visualized images on the their wall he/she will receive the social interactions from his/her friends, family and Vizu communities by way of recommendations and comments for the shared visualization. Thereby, products hosted by the vendors in VizuSHOP populate in VizuSHOP social network in viral mode promoting aesthetic values of the vendor products.

The portal server infrastructure comprises web servers, application servers, database servers, email/SMS/MMS gateway and advertising engine.

FIG. 02 illustrates a preferred embodiment of the Image Referencing Standard in accordance with the present invention. The images which use to form a Vizu Object for visualization, is standardized according to the object referencing standard. Images are referenced to its usual full faced posture along with horizontal and vertical rotations. This standard helps any external parties to provide images of the products to the visualization shopping portal. For the purpose of visualization series of product images are taken rotating an object around a point known as visual center 4.

FIG. 03 illustrates the characteristics of the Vizu Object used in the visualization process. The Vizu Object is having three principal characteristics, visual center 5, visual contour 6 and visual resolution 7. The visual center 5 is artistically defined point of the object on which the object rotates during the visualization process. During image capturing of the object the visual center of the object should be kept stand still. Visual contour 6 of an object is artistically defined area created by the useful set of images for visualization which is limited by the maximum rotation on the horizontal and vertical planes, once the horizontal and vertical rotations are plotted for different postures of the useful set of visualizations of the object. For the purpose of product visualization, it is not required to have all possible postures of the product. The number of images captured within the visual contour is distributed in the area based on the visual resolution 7, which is defined as the angle of rotation between two adjacent postures of the object during the visualization process. Visual resolution comprises of vertical rotational resolution and horizontal rotational resolution components. The value of the resolution may be a constant or a variable depending on a product's aesthetics and its visualization requirement.

The visualization framework enables the customer to experience the visual aesthetics of the product by way of virtual reality. As it depicts in the FIG.04 customers can virtually bring the product to its environment where it is going to be used. The Visualization Shopping Portal hosts Vizu Objects of the products by way of array of images 8 produced according to the visualization concepts. Customer can maintain virtual folders for his/her two dimensional standard photos 9 and his/her visualized images 10. Visualization is achieved by manipulating the Vizu Object over the customer's two dimensional image in multiple layers of the web browsers assisted by visualization server 11. During the visualization process customer perform activities such as scaling, rotating, tilting, changing of the colors, and changing of the model of the three dimensional aesthetic object. Once the customer is satisfied with the visualization he/she can capture a picture of that which is used for publishing in the social network or saving in the portal or in the local personal computer 12.

FIG.05 illustrates the image scale referencing methodology used in the present invention with a reference tag. During the visualization process, the visualizing object (Vizu object) and primary object (two dimensional image of a person or environment) should be rescaled according to their true sizes to experience true visualization. Reference object 13 is a circular tag with predetermined unique pattern of image with combination of predetermined text string. The diagrams depicts the method the primary object and the visualizing object rescaled to their true sizes by way of using reference object, during the image capturing and visualization process. The reference object is attached with the primary object at photo capturing 14. The reference object is having predetermined size so that image processing technologies can identify and measure the ratio of the scale of reference object 15. After recognizing the reference image, reference image's reduction or enlargement ratio is identified with respect to its actual size. Then the visualizing object is re-scaled according to the reference object's enlargement/ reduction ratio 16. This is achieved with the use of artificial intelligence and image processing techniques.

FIG.06 illustrates the home page of the Visualization Shopping Portal System. The PickList 17 includes the products chosen by the user from different vendors for visualization. The user's personal information, his/her product loyalty memberships and his/her social groups such as friends, family and product specific fan groups are displayed in the left panel 18. The central panel 19 includes the wall, items, photos and Vizu tabs. Users can browse different vendor categories 21 to select specific vendor via items tab. The communication bar 20, consists the MMS and chat communication tools to receive the user's images sent via MMS and facilitate online messaging to promote social interactions for visualized products.

FIG.07 illustrates the PickList item selection from an exemplary virtual vendor showcase (VizuCraft) hosted in the Visualization Shopping Portal system. Once specific vendor is selected user will have assess to the virtual show room of the specific vendor hosted within the visualization shopping portal. Users can add interested items from the vendor's virtual showroom to the pick list by clicking the Add to PickList tab 22. User can visualize specific product by clicking VizuPAD tab on the top menu bar.

FIG.08 illustrates the visualizing sub system; VizuPAD, which enable users to perform visualization over the Internet. User's images uploaded for the visualization are displayed in the bottom panel 23. The right panel includes the PickList items. User can add the primary object selecting an image from the bottom panel 23. The selected image appears on the visualization panel 24. PickList items are dragged and dropped on to the visualization panel 24, so as to overlap on the primary object. The visualizing objects selected from the PickList can be manipulated with scaling tool 25, and rotational tools 26. The tool bar 27 on the top right corner of the visualization panel, provides additional tools for image capturing, refreshing and advanced functionalities. Once user satisfied with the visualization he/she may capture a photograph of the visualization by clicking the capture icon in the tool bar 27.

FIG.09 illustrates photo capturing of a customer's visualization in the VizuPAD. The captured image carries water marks of the portal operator's brand 29 (VizuSHOP) and product vendor's brand 30 (exemplary vendor; VizuCraft). User can save the captured visualization by clicking the save tab 31. User is prompted with a screen 28 to assign a Name and Description to the captured image. By selecting the Publish select box, captured visualization can be published, so that it appears on the user's wall to be shared among the community to get the feedback on his/her visualization with the selected product.

FIG.10 illustrates publishing of photo captured visualization 32 in the user's wall. The members in the Vizu community who possess permission to assess the published photos can comment in the comment box 33 of the particular visualization. Other users in the community can share published visualization of the user by clicking on the Share tab 34. online user's express their views by means of messengers services available with chat room 35 in the communication bar 20. Publishing of photo captured visualization entice customers to trigger a demand for products which are having very high level of visual aesthetic preference due to the ability of experiencing the visual aesthetics via Internet prior to a purchasing decision.

FIG.11 illustrates purchasing of a visualized product at an exemplary traditional vendor site 37(www.vizucraft.com). Once a user initiate a buying request at the Visualization Shopping Portal, the product gets added to the shopping cart 36 of the particular user at the vendor's e-commerce site. Payment and delivery will be handled by the specific vendor's existing methodologies.

FIG.12 illustrates uploading of user's images. Users can upload their images over the Internet with the help of the image upload panel 38. Images taken by the mobile phones are received through the MMS tool 39 on the communication bar 20.

FIG.13 illustrates the panel given to the user for selecting the specific Vizu tag. While the user uploading photos for visualization shopping portal, the image uploading panel prompts the user to mark whether the image contains referencing tag 13. If the photo contains the referencing tag user need to identify the type of tag 42 he/she used for the particular photo. System rescales such images to reflect the actual dimensions.

Industrial Applicability

A virtual space for admire visual aesthetics of the products - VizuSHOP is an electronic commerce portal which connects customers and vendors in the Internet. In addition to its new paradigm in appreciating aesthetics features of the product in the e-commerce VizuSHOP will enhance the following industries.

Furniture industry - VizuSHOP will promote online sale of furniture and furniture accessories which were not highly traded before in the Internet due to aesthetics complexity and complex customer liking.

Interior decorations industry - Customers search for architect and designer's services especially in the interior decorations since they do not have a method to visualize the final outcome prior to make the order. The VizuSHOP enable customers to carry out interior decorations design by themselves. By this way industry will boost with customers becoming designers and making online purchase for interior decoration items.

Fashion accessories - The VizuSHOP boost the fashion accessory industry by enabling users to virtually match accessories to one self and his/her other wearings. The accessory designers and manufactures can identify users specific interests with the market data available on the the VizuSHOP.

Product marketing advertising - The branding and popularizing mechanisms such as dynamically branded vendor pages, water marking of the visualized images with vendor's brand identities and sharing of the visualized images with vendor's branding over a vast social network.

Product manufactures and designers - The VizuSHOP help the product designers and manufactures to understand customer liking and requirement better than never before. Hence product designers can design more and more products with specific customer liking.

Market researches - The VizuSHOP create a data set of users with specific aesthetic, commercial preferences. Also user social interaction on market products is recorded in the VizuSHOP data base. Hence the data collection task of the market researches will be obsolete. There for VizuSHOP help to increase the efficiency in the market research and also enable them to excavate new market information on customer's aesthetic preference.

Claims

The methods of Visualization Shopping portal comprising,

Visualization panel

Preparing the aesthetic Vizu object;

Overlapping the user's photographs with the Vizu object on the visualization panel; VizuPAD;

Auto scaling the primary object with the vendor's Vizu object;

Manipulating Vizu object on the Visualization panel; VizuPAD to experience artistic visualization for matching of visual aesthetics of user's environment with the commercial products;

Capturing of the best suited visualization;

Publishing the captured visualization on the social network;

Inviting social interaction for a user's particular personal visualization for the commercial product;

Attract social influence towards a personal preference of visual aesthetics of the commercial product derived from the social networking; and

Dissemination of market data on customer's visual aesthetic preference to manufacturer and vendors
The method according to the claim 1, wherein said step of preparing the Vizu object includes obtaining set of images of useful postures of the vendor product for visualization.
The method according to the claim 1, wherein said step of overlapping the user's photographs with the Vizu object on the visualization panel; VizuPAD enables the user perform visualization activity.
The method according to the claim 1, wherein said step of auto scaling recalibrates the primary object and the vendor's Vizu object to a common relative scale for visualization in normalized scale.
The method according to the claim 1, wherein said step of manipulating Vizu object on the Visualization panel comprises scaling, rotating, tilting, color changing and model changing.
The method according to the claim 1, wherein said step of capturing of the best suited visualization is performed by amalgamating multiple HTML layers to a single layer which forms the two dimensional picture of the visualization panel.
The method according to the claim 1, wherein said step of publishing comprises the pluralizing the captured visualization of a user on the social community of him/her.
The method according to the claim 1, wherein said step of publishing includes carrying out brand differentiation with water marked images with specific vendor brands.
The method according to the claim 1, wherein said step of inviting social interaction for a user's particular personal visualization for the commercial product is performed using at least one of commenting, sharing, and chatting.
The method according to the claim 1, wherein said step of inviting social interaction attracts social influence towards a personal preference of visual aesthetics of the commercial product derived from the social networking.
The method according to the claim 1, wherein said step of dissemination of market data on customer's visual aesthetic preference to manufacturer's and vendor's products is achieved by analysing the customer's and his/her community behavior in the system with regard to the product's aesthetic characteristics such as color tones, texture, and shapes.
A computer readable medium having computer readable program for operating on a computer for executing Visualization Shopping Portal; vizuSHOP , said program comprising instructions that cause the computer to perform the steps of:

Visualization panel

Preparing the aesthetic Vizu object;

Overlapping the user's photographs with the Vizu object on the visualization panel; VizuPAD;

Auto scaling the primary object with the vendor's Vizu object;

Manipulating Vizu object on the Visualization panel to experience artistic visualization for matching of visual aesthetics of user's environment with the commercial products;

Capturing of the best suited visualization;

Publishing the captured visualization on the social network;

Inviting social interaction for a user's particular personal visualization for the commercial product;

Attract social influence towards a personal preference of visual aesthetics of the commercial product derived from the social networking; and

Dissemination of market data on customer's visual aesthetic preference to manufacturer and vendors;
The system for Visualization Shopping Portal comprising:

a Visualization Panel; VizuPAD;

a Vizu reference tag detection and Auto scaling software subsystem;

a Vizu object creation subsystem;

a Vizu interface sub system for vendor portals;

a Vizu 'Vizu It' Plugging subsystem;

a Vizu social networking subsystem; and

a Vizu market data information subsystem.
The system according to the claim 13, wherein said Visualization panel; VizuPAD enables the user perform visualization activity.
The system according to the claim 13, wherein said Vizu reference tag detection and Auto scaling software subsystem normalize the customer images and Vizu objects to their true sizes .
The system according to the claim 13, wherein said Vizu object creation subsystem converts commercial products into three dimensional aesthetic electronic objects.
The system according to the claim 13, wherein said Vizu interface sub system for vendor portals inter connects products in the commercial vendor portals to visualization shopping portal to offer visualization services to a particular product.
The system according to the claim 13, wherein said Vizu 'Vizu It' Plugging subsystem identifies visualization enabled products from vendor's e-commerce sites provided the plugging sub system installed in user's Internet browser.
The system according to the claim 13, wherein said Vizu social networking subsystem creates a virtual meeting place for users to meet vendors and visualize their products with his/her community's social influence.
The system according to the claim 13, wherein said Vizu market data information subsystem analyze the customer's preferences by way of placing an vision based intelligent agent in the customer's product visualization environment and affiliated social environment in the Visualization Shopping Portal.