A system and method is described to estimate real life relationships between people based on large amount of personal visual information, e.g., photos and videos. Such information is associated with annotation especially face information. The system contains a database of visual images extracted from common media formats such as photos and videos contributed by many users. People appear in these images are annotated with metadata such as name of face owners, location of faces, size of faces, and additional features extracted on the faces and the images themselves. The images are also annotated with metadata such as time, location, event, keyword, etc. The system includes an algorithm to estimate relationships between people appear in these images based on the image data and metadata for each image in the database. The system also includes an algorithm to estimate popularity of people appear in these images based on the same information.
METHOD FOR ESTIMATING REAL LIFE RELATIONSHIPS AND POPULARITIES AMONG PEOPLE BASED ON PERSONAL VISUAL DATA