5 ms·

TinEye: image recognition search

76 points by DarkShikari 17y ago

swombat 17y ago
Someone needs to give these guys a big wad of cash so they can index more sites. I got some interesting results even on some moderately obscure images, but many others returned no results. Even with a small index, though, this is pretty damn cool.
- DarkShikari 17y ago
  I tested a forum avatar that was downscaled to the point of unrecognizability... and it found the specific original image immediately. It is pretty impressive.
  - ErrantX 17y ago
    Heh, I did the same with my usual avatar with similar results. They've been about for a while - it is impressively useful & they need more funds for sure.
- tortilla 17y ago
  I agree, was thoroughly impressed with them when I tried some random images. Unfortunately, they might have to add a Twitter suffix to their name to attract funding.
- mrtron 17y ago
  Idée Inc has been around for quite a while doing cool image stuff - they are almost certainly funded. This is a really impressive pattern matching search.
  - dmix 17y ago
    Leila and Paul bootstrapped the company from day 1 and have paying corporate customers.
- jdrock 17y ago
  At the risk of being spammy, I really do think they'd benefit from using the service my company has developed - http://www.80legs.com http://www.80legs.com. They'll be able to reach and compare millions of images per day for less than $100 (depending on the computational complexity of their image comparison).
  - radu_floricica 17y ago
    I don't know about them, but this looks very promising. Will you also offer search/parse primitives, like simple ways to parse classifieds or forums or other standard formats?
    - jdrock 17y ago
      We plan on providing some basic utility functions that will help our customers, but one of the great things is that you can use third-party code in your own code. I actually mean two things when I say this. First, you can use available Java libraries for parsing HTML. Second, we'll be creating an app store model, where by developers can sell/license their code to other customers.
  - Keyframe 17y ago
    well this looks quite interesting! edit: ok I'm watching the video where you, or someone, is explaining the service. I was wondering how limiting is the access to data? I'm under the impression that you crawl the web no matter what and clients piggyback on the crawl stream and do analytics on it. So, who makes calls on web crawling method, I guess you? What if a client wants to crawl and analyze only a specific domain, country specific, for example? And how often and what exactly gets crawled? Lets say a client wants to implement a news.google.com or google alerts (or even tineye) - just as an example - it would analyze a web crawl stream from you and get data out of your system to their servers for utilization? How would such a, presumably large, data get transferred over to the client? What is provided as crawled data? Only a html stream, or the whole page that includes js, css and pictures? Or would a client need to get image links from your crawl and get images themselves? Sorry for lots of questions and incoherency :) but it does look interesting.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
jcl 17y ago
Previously on HN: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=535818 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=535818 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=423679 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=423679 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=356971 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=356971 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=302020 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=302020 (and several more articles discussing the company)
voidpointer 17y ago
This could be very useful to show how some crowed-sourcing/spec-work design contest sites are filled with ripped-off illustrations and logos. Example taking this screenshot: http://www.thelogofactory.com/logo_blog/v5.0_images/CS-istock1-LDG-99designs2.jpg http://www.thelogofactory.com/logo_blog/v5.0_images/CS-istoc... From this article: http://www.thelogofactory.com/logo_blog/index.php/anti-spec-work-parable/ http://www.thelogofactory.com/logo_blog/index.php/anti-spec-... Gives interesting results as to where else the crab-illustration got used. (Not sure how permanent the search links to tineye are, but anyway: http://tineye.com/search/df2783dbde7f56ccdfbcdb61460185f40962c329 http://tineye.com/search/df2783dbde7f56ccdfbcdb61460185f4096...)
mlok 17y ago
The firefox plugin (I found it very useful) is here : https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/8922 https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/8922
Torn 17y ago
productised over at http://www.ideeinc.com/products/pixid/ http://www.ideeinc.com/products/pixid/ -- great idea, I think. Countdown until they're bought out by Google or similar? ...
leila 17y ago
... but guys have you seen the TinEye widgets? i bet you haven't:http://tineye.com/widgets/display http://tineye.com/widgets/display my favorite is the angry baby of course http://tineye.com/widgets/display?baby http://tineye.com/widgets/display?baby
davidbnewquist 17y ago
In addition to TinEye, they another image search for more loosely similar pics: very, very cool. http://labs.ideeinc.com/visual/ http://labs.ideeinc.com/visual/ On this page, you have to select the query image from a set they provide. On the page linked below, you can upload your own. http://labs.ideeinc.com/upload/ http://labs.ideeinc.com/upload/
zandorg 17y ago
Extraordinary! I tested both my company logos in it, and nothing came up. This means they don't infringe. :-)
cookiecaper 17y ago
A long time ago I saw something like this on OpenClipArt. The cool thing, though, was that it provided a Java applet where you could draw what you wanted and it would try to match that. I find that more useful and awesome, though this is useful too. I know basically the same thing could happen by using Paint or something, but it's cooler in browser. Please take note of this and someone implement a feature like it.

76 points by DarkShikari 17y ago

Someone needs to give these guys a big wad of cash so they can index more sites. I got some interesting results even on some moderately obscure images, but many others returned no results. Even with a small index, though, this is pretty damn cool.

DarkShikari 17y ago
I tested a forum avatar that was downscaled to the point of unrecognizability... and it found the specific original image immediately. It is pretty impressive.
- ErrantX 17y ago
  Heh, I did the same with my usual avatar with similar results. They've been about for a while - it is impressively useful & they need more funds for sure.
tortilla 17y ago
I agree, was thoroughly impressed with them when I tried some random images. Unfortunately, they might have to add a Twitter suffix to their name to attract funding.
mrtron 17y ago
Idée Inc has been around for quite a while doing cool image stuff - they are almost certainly funded. This is a really impressive pattern matching search.
- dmix 17y ago
  Leila and Paul bootstrapped the company from day 1 and have paying corporate customers.
jdrock 17y ago
At the risk of being spammy, I really do think they'd benefit from using the service my company has developed - http://www.80legs.com http://www.80legs.com. They'll be able to reach and compare millions of images per day for less than $100 (depending on the computational complexity of their image comparison).
- radu_floricica 17y ago
  I don't know about them, but this looks very promising. Will you also offer search/parse primitives, like simple ways to parse classifieds or forums or other standard formats?
  - jdrock 17y ago
    We plan on providing some basic utility functions that will help our customers, but one of the great things is that you can use third-party code in your own code. I actually mean two things when I say this. First, you can use available Java libraries for parsing HTML. Second, we'll be creating an app store model, where by developers can sell/license their code to other customers.
- Keyframe 17y ago
  well this looks quite interesting! edit: ok I'm watching the video where you, or someone, is explaining the service. I was wondering how limiting is the access to data? I'm under the impression that you crawl the web no matter what and clients piggyback on the crawl stream and do analytics on it. So, who makes calls on web crawling method, I guess you? What if a client wants to crawl and analyze only a specific domain, country specific, for example? And how often and what exactly gets crawled? Lets say a client wants to implement a news.google.com or google alerts (or even tineye) - just as an example - it would analyze a web crawl stream from you and get data out of your system to their servers for utilization? How would such a, presumably large, data get transferred over to the client? What is provided as crawled data? Only a html stream, or the whole page that includes js, css and pictures? Or would a client need to get image links from your crawl and get images themselves? Sorry for lots of questions and incoherency :) but it does look interesting.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

jcl 17y ago

Previously on HN: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=535818 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=535818 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=423679 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=423679 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=356971 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=356971 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=302020 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=302020 (and several more articles discussing the company)

voidpointer 17y ago

This could be very useful to show how some crowed-sourcing/spec-work design contest sites are filled with ripped-off illustrations and logos. Example taking this screenshot: http://www.thelogofactory.com/logo_blog/v5.0_images/CS-istock1-LDG-99designs2.jpg http://www.thelogofactory.com/logo_blog/v5.0_images/CS-istoc... From this article: http://www.thelogofactory.com/logo_blog/index.php/anti-spec-work-parable/ http://www.thelogofactory.com/logo_blog/index.php/anti-spec-... Gives interesting results as to where else the crab-illustration got used. (Not sure how permanent the search links to tineye are, but anyway: http://tineye.com/search/df2783dbde7f56ccdfbcdb61460185f40962c329 http://tineye.com/search/df2783dbde7f56ccdfbcdb61460185f4096...)

mlok 17y ago

The firefox plugin (I found it very useful) is here : https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/8922 https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/8922

Torn 17y ago

productised over at http://www.ideeinc.com/products/pixid/ http://www.ideeinc.com/products/pixid/ -- great idea, I think. Countdown until they're bought out by Google or similar? ...

leila 17y ago

... but guys have you seen the TinEye widgets? i bet you haven't:http://tineye.com/widgets/display http://tineye.com/widgets/display my favorite is the angry baby of course http://tineye.com/widgets/display?baby http://tineye.com/widgets/display?baby

davidbnewquist 17y ago

In addition to TinEye, they another image search for more loosely similar pics: very, very cool. http://labs.ideeinc.com/visual/ http://labs.ideeinc.com/visual/ On this page, you have to select the query image from a set they provide. On the page linked below, you can upload your own. http://labs.ideeinc.com/upload/ http://labs.ideeinc.com/upload/

zandorg 17y ago

Extraordinary! I tested both my company logos in it, and nothing came up. This means they don't infringe. :-)

cookiecaper 17y ago

A long time ago I saw something like this on OpenClipArt. The cool thing, though, was that it provided a Java applet where you could draw what you wanted and it would try to match that. I find that more useful and awesome, though this is useful too. I know basically the same thing could happen by using Paint or something, but it's cooler in browser. Please take note of this and someone implement a feature like it.