Visual Search Solutions

Visual & similarity search technology can analyze the overall visual aesthetic of an image or detected object in an image, independent of the origin of images or metadata (such as keywords). It understands the concept of similarity according to your subjective perception. That is why it can provide the most relevant results to image queries, whether you look for the exact match or similar items.

Visual search typically involves searching images or products using an image query, including photos from social media and user-generated content, like smartphone photos. Our Search by Photo combines this technology with detecting individual products in images. One such solution is Search Fashion by Photo.

The technology is frequently employed for similarity searches, particularly for product recommendations in e-commerce. It assesses image or detected object features, like colour, edges, or patterns, to suggest the most similar alternatives.

Another typical use is image & product matching. Since the technology can identify duplicates or nearly identical items in various images with different quality, it can help with curating product galleries and eliminating all unnecessary content.

Even though applications in e-commerce are the most common, visual search provides endless possibilities even in the industrial sector, scientific research or security systems.

Yes, you can combine these services. Read more on their pages.

The source of the images in your collection is up to you. It can be third-party data (e.g., scraped from public websites or social networks), but it is up to you to collect these images (files or their URLs) and to act in accordance with the copyright law.

Visual search technology is powered by AI techniques such as computer vision and deep learning. The main benefits of visual search are:

1. Independence of keywords and metadata – Visual search engine does not rely on additional data such as keywords or metadata to process, find or recommend an image. The technology actually observes features such as colours and their transitions, edges, patterns, or details, and extracts a specifically structured piece of information from each image.
2. Time efficiency – A typical visual search engine can search in large collections in a matter of seconds or less.
3. Enhanced user experience – Visual search improves the search results at e-commerce sites significantly, making it easier to find exactly what the buyers and users are looking for.
4. Traffic & revenue – Similarity search engages and inspires customers with alternative items and content to the things they are currently viewing or to items out of stock.
5. Data privacy – Once the image is processed by the visual search, it is immediately discarded. The technology then works with the extracted data. Your images are not stored anywhere.
6. Fraud and content theft prevention – Visual search understands the concept of similarity the way you need it to. Thus, it helps identify your graphical content even with different resolution or with filters.
7. The most efficient way of visual content management – Visual search provides a consistent and reliable way to automate your whole image collection processing, including the identification and elimination of duplicates or merging of the images of the same products into shared galleries.

The ready-to-use solutions based on visual search technology are available for testing in both public demo and Ximilar App.

It is also a standard procedure to prepare custom demos. Read our page How we work and contact us. We will prepare a custom demo tailored to your collection.

Visual search tools and software enable us to search for similar and identical photos, images, or objects, using various visual cues. Visual search algorithms analyze visual content and extract information from each image, enabling us to locate similar items or products, based on a provided image.

This technology finds application in diverse visual search use cases, including e-commerce, where users can search for products by taking a picture. Visual similarity search applications and platforms are used everywhere where visual data are essential.

Last but not least, visual search benefits include its wide use in content management systems to search for images within a database using visual references.

Ximilar provides a full range of solutions powered by visual search algorithms, such as reverse image search (including searching internal databases), search by photo (combined with object detection), similar product and graphical content recommendations, and collection management with image matching.

Some of our most widely used solutions powered by visual search are available for testing in the public free demo. We tailored dedicated visual search solutions for areas such as fashion, stock photos or collectible items.

If you would like to integrate the visual search into your website, app or systems, let us know anytime via contact form, live chat, direct call or an e-mail. We are here to make computer vision easily accessible to everyone.

Visual search is reshaping industries across the board:

• Visual search together with other visual AI techniques enhances search capabilities of search engines, optimizing content organization and accessibility.
• In retail, it’s transforming the shopping experience by enabling instant product identification and recommendation, leading to increased sales and customer satisfaction. Learn more here.
• In healthcare, visual search aids in swiftly and accurately analyzing diagnostic images and enables efficient retrieval and organization of medical images and records, ultimately improving patient care and outcomes.
• Marketers are leveraging visual search to drive brand visibility and engagement, enhancing advertising strategies and conversion rates. Learn more here.
• Automotive industries are incorporating visual search technologies to advance autonomous driving capabilities, enhancing object recognition and real-time decision-making.
• It also helps with content management and large image collection curation across numerous industries. Learn more here.

Visual search is always custom designed to search your images based on their visual similarity. To use the visual search, your image database needs to be synchronized to your collection in the Ximilar cloud.

During synchronization, each image is analyzed, a representation of this image is created, and then the image file is discarded. That is why your collection does not contain any actual images. It may, however, contain links (URLs) to the original images, if you provided them.

If your image database is dynamic (images are inserted and deleted over time), your collection at Ximilar cloud must be synchronized. This synchronization can be done via API, or Ximilar can set up a regular synchronization.

The visual search by Ximilar was already successfully applied to video footage, and we are looking forward to developing the technology for other types of data, such as 3D models or VR scenes! Contact us to discuss your use case.

The purpose of visual search is to improve the searchability and discoverability of visual content, which is especially helpful in large collections with up to billions of images. It is appliable to real-life photos as well as illustrations, product photos, designs, and patterns or logos.

The process is as follows:

1. The first step is to contact us, and we will discuss your use case. To bring precise results, the visual search is always tuned for a specific type of images. That is why we can provide visual search for domains such as fashion, real estate, or stock photos right away. More specific types of images, on the other hand, require training a custom similarity model.
2. We can prepare a custom demo before deploying the system.
3. Your collection will be synchronized to Ximilar cloud. This does not mean that your images will be stored. Each image needs to be processed by the visual search only once to extract information, and then it is immediately discarded. The synchronization enables you to add new images and change your collection 24/7.

To optimize user experience, consider implementing these strategies when integrating visual search on your website:

1. Similarity Search: Offer users suggestions based on similar items, allowing them to explore alternatives effortlessly, including variations in colours and materials. Learn more about similar product recommendations here.
2. Reverse Image Search: Enable users to search using real-life photos, social media posts, or product images, instantly providing them with desired items or closely related alternatives. Our search by photo first detects all products in an uploaded image and then automatically provides alternatives to each item individually.
3. Personalized Recommendations: Predict users’ preferences by analyzing their uploaded, saved, liked, or purchased items, ensuring tailored recommendations that fit their individual tastes. Our visual search solutions are tailored to analyze the overall aesthetics of the items, including shapes, patterns, logos, colours, or materials.

Product Similarity (visual product search) was built for e-commerce. It is useful for finding similar pictures of products with image queries, similar product recommendations, and product matching.

Search by Photo (product search by image) combines product similarity with object detection to provide similar pictures specifically to the detected object, such as a piece of fashion apparel. It can be used in reverse search engine for fashion, home decor, and other e-commerce product search engines.

Photo Similarity (similar photo search) works with the same technology, but it was trained for generic images, such as stock photos or real-life images.

Fashion Search is a specialized service for fashion e-commerce, which combines visual & similarity search with object detection (Search by Photo) and Fashion Tagging.

Home Decor Search works in the same way in the field of home decor and furniture photos. It also combines visual & similarity search with object detection (Search by Photo) and Furniture & Home Decor Tagging.

Custom Visual Search refers to all solutions using visual & similarity search we build from scratch for our customers.