Pinterest just got what may be the killer feature to catapult the service into an entirely new level of popularity and profit: visual search. 

Revealed on Sunday, the new feature allows you to select a specific item in a pinned photo and search for visually similar items on the site. 

The feature won't go live until Monday but, if it works as described, this could turn the site into an even richer resource for consumers who use the site for shopping ideas. 

Getting the feature to work is as simple as clicking the search button and then using an adjustable box over the photo to zoom in on a particular item.  The visual searches can be focused even more by adding key words to your search. 

Image: Pinterest

Savvy web users have been using Google's image search tool for a while now to take an unknown image and have it compared to visually similar items, but Pinterest's tool allows you to stay within the site's community when looking to do a little visual sleuthing. 

"There are dozens of interesting items within a Pin’s image; we want to give Pinners a tool to learn more about these items," said Pinterest engineer Andrew Zhai on the site's technical blog, describing how the tool, developed in conjunction with Berkeley Vision and Learning Center, works. " We optimize on visual similarity, not just duplicates to power Pinners to discovery exact results, as well as unexpected results that may be similar in style or pattern or shape." 

Another benefit to the new feature is its time saving utility.  By giving users a way to better focus searches, visual search could help cut down on those hours of addictive browsing on Pinterest, a guilty pleasure that is nonetheless a major time waster. 

A Pinterest spokesperson confirmed to Mashable that the changes on Monday will be available on iOS, Android and on the web.