What is Visual Similarity Search?

Visual Similarity Search retrieves images that "look similar", regardless of the image content. Retrieved images have similar visual attributes as the chosen images, such as comparable colors, textures, and shapes. The retrieval does not use knowledge about the actual subjects in the images.

Visual similarity results are provided by one of the best Content Based Image Retrieval systems (CBIR) available today, SIMPLIcity. This is cutting-edge research, done by professors Jia Li and James Z. Wang at Stanford and Penn State.

There are three ways to accesss Visual Similarity Search:

  • On each of the individual images pages, click on the link "Visually similar images" below the image.
  • In the search results, click on the "Eye" icon below each thumbnail
  • In the Advanced Search page, upload your own image, either from the web or from your local computer.