Institute For The Future

Drawing interface for Flickr

Retrievr is a neat hack from Vienna-based System One that enables users to input simple line drawings to search a database of images from the Flickr photo sharing service.

 

 

 

 

I drew the branch on the left and the image on the right was one of the search results. The results are sometimes a bit, well, off, but it's a step in an interesting direction in terms of visual language. From the project description:

Does it actually work?

Yes! That is, it depends. (Mainly on your expectations!)

In my experience, the results are usually fairly good, sometimes even stunning - considering the artistic sophistication most of us are able to come up with (gallery forthcoming); and in the cases they're not so stellar, they are at least entertaining ;-) But clearly, the approach has its limits.

One thing to keep in mind is that retrievr doesn't do object/face/text recognition of any kind, so if you're drawing an outline sketch of a chair, it almost certainly won't get you one back (except your index only contains images of chairs). The same holds for corporate logos, icons &c.
It helps to think of it as matching the most pronounced shapes and slabs of colors.

 

Link to Retrievr, Link to info about other "Search By Drawing" projects