Network-based navigation system having virtual drive-thru advertisements integrated with actual imagery from along a physical route
A network-based navigation system includes a user interface and a computer server system that can access a map database, an actual imagery database and an advertisement database in order to provide visual route guidance information having virtual drive-thru advertisements integrated with actual imagery from along a physical route. The user interface permits a user to submit a request for navigation information, receive visual route guidance information in response to the request and initiate a drive-thru presentation of at least a portion of a route. The computer server determines at least one route from the map database based on the request from the user and provides route guidance information to the user interface in response. The computer server also identifies actual imagery from the image database associated with the at least one route and selectively replaces at least one polygon region identified in the actual imagery associated with the at least one route with at least one advertisement from the ad database to create a drive-thru presentation with at least one virtual advertisement. At least a portion of the drive-thru presentation is presented to the user interface. In one embodiment, the computer server records a drive-thru charge for the virtual advertisements present in the portion of the drive-thru presentation provided to the user interface.
1. A method of identifying ad-spots within geo-referenced imagery by utilizing sign-ness characteristics of portions of an image frame that depict suitable advertisement locations, the method comprising:
providing an image database containing actual imagery captured from at least one camera traversed along a physical route, the actual imagery having a generally horizontally oriented perspective;
storing the sign-ness characteristics in a database as discrete data structures containing one or more information fields relating to the suitable advertisement locations;
creating records for image portions that exhibit detectable unique sign-ness;
extracting image portions depicting suitable ad-spots from image frames having an appreciable level of sign-ness;
categorizing image frames with an unappreciable level of sign-ness as background imagery;
processing image frames containing an appreciable level of sign-ness, such that the suitable advertisement locations are categorized as road signs or potential advertisements; and
identifying a region of an image frame containing a potential advertisement and assigning a unique identifier to the region, wherein multiple successive image frames containing the region comprises an ad-spot.
2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising conditioning an image frame to increase the desirability of an ad-spot.
3. The method of claim 1 , further comprising linking an ad-spot to non-navigation related attributes.
4. The method of claim 1 , further comprising determining metrics for the ad-spot.
5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising making the ad-spot available to potential advertisers for leasing.
6. A system for the identification of ad-spots within geo-referenced imagery by utilizing sign-ness characteristics of portions of an image frame that depict suitable advertisement locations, the system comprising:
an image database containing actual imagery captured from at least one camera traversed along a physical route, the actual imagery having a generally horizontally oriented perspective;
a database containing the sign-ness characteristics as discrete data structures containing one or more information fields relating to the suitable advertisement locations;
means for creating records for image portions that exhibit detectable unique sign-ness;
means for extracting image portions depicting suitable ad-spots from image frames having an appreciable level of sign-ness;
means for categorizing image frames with an unappreciable level of sign-ness as background imagery;
means for processing image frames containing an appreciable level of sign-ness, such that the suitable advertisement locations are categorized as road signs or potential advertisements; and
means for identifying a region of an image frame containing a potential advertisement and assigning a unique identifier to the region, wherein multiple successive image frames containing the region comprises an ad-spot.