Patent ID: 6418430
Filing Date: 2002-07-09
Classification: G06F,G06K,Y10S

Abstract:
A system for storing visual images comprising:a store having a plurality of visual images held therein, each visual image having a respective computable visual image signature derived from a plurality of image primitives and a plurality of signature attributes derived from the visual image signature; a query image having a respective computable query image signature derived from the plurality of the image primitives and a plurality of the signature attributes derived from the query image signature; a visual image feature structure in the store having a plurality of containers for holding visual images, each contained including an identifier and the signature attributes for the respective visual image, each of the signature attributes for the respective visual image having an index; a reduction filter that reduces the number of containers that are candidates for full comparison into a candidate result; and an evaluator for performing the full comparison of the visual image signature of each stored visual image represented in the candidate result against the query image signature and returning a final result of the visual images that are similar to the query image; wherein the reduction filter further comprises at least one of: a range query filter that processes the visual image feature structure and produces an intermediate result of range query filtered containers whose signature attributes for the visual image represent a range into which the corresponding signature attributes for the query image fit; and a functional predicate filter that processes the intermediate result of range query filtered containers and produces a candidate result of functional predicate filtered containers, the visual signature attributes of each container satisfying a distance measure when compared to the query image signature attributes.