Patent ID: 8233722

Claim:
An image management method for storing, indexing, searching, and/or retrieving image data comprising the steps of: identifying keypoints in images, including keypoints in a query image of a query document and keypoints in potential target document images of a collection of potential target documents; generating fingerprint information from the keypoints, wherein the fingerprint information and accompanying images are organized in a Fan Tree structure, which provides near neighbor searching in a high dimensional space, wherein the near-neighbor searching in the high dimensional space provided by the Fan Tree structure includes supporting looking up of near misses of fingerprints, including fingerprints which are less than identical fingerprints of the query image by a predetermined tolerance; comparing the fingerprint information of the query image with fingerprint information of the potential target document images in the collection of potential target documents; determining a best match between the fingerprint information of the query image and the potential target document images; retrieving at least one target document image based on the determining step; and at least one of displaying, printing, storing or transmitting the retrieved at least one target document image.