Patent ID: 7702159

Claim:
A computer system for detecting similar differences between a plurality of images, comprising a processor and memory storing the following components: a pixel comparator that receives a baseline image of a user interface of a software product and a plurality of sample images of the user interface that are generated during a progression of builds of the software product, and compares pixels of the baseline image with corresponding pixels of the plurality of sample images to detect differences between the pixels compared; a derivative difference processor operably coupled to the pixel comparator for determining a difference region of pixels detected as different by the pixel comparator in the plurality of sample images, wherein the derivative difference processor performs the following steps: for each of the plurality of sample images, defining one or more difference regions within the sample image, wherein a difference region comprises a plurality of adjacent pixels of the sample image that are each different than the corresponding pixel of a plurality of adjacent pixels of the baseline image; and assigning an identifier to each of the one or more difference regions wherein a difference region of a first sample image is assigned the same identifier as a difference region of a second sample image if the plurality of adjacent pixels of the first sample image have differences similar to the plurality of adjacent pixels of the second sample image; an image sorter operably coupled to the difference derivative processor for grouping the plurality of sample images into groups having similar difference regions as determined by the derivative difference processor, wherein the image sorter performs the following steps: comparing the identifiers of the one or more difference regions for each of the plurality of sample images to determine that two or more of the plurality of sample images have similar difference regions; and upon determining that two or more of the plurality of sample images have similar difference regions, grouping the two or more sample images together; and a component for performing operations on the group of two or more sample images by analyzing a set of similar difference regions corresponding to the group rather than performing an analysis on each of the sample images individually.