NEC Develops Prototype Video Graphics Search Engine

Researchers at Japan's NEC Corp., looking
toward a future where a home video server collects video and photographic content from diverse online and offline sources, have
developed the first experimental prototype of a powerful graphics search engine that can quickly locate the required images or video scene.

The search engine has been designed to be highly accurate
and is capable of locating digital images, photographs and
video scenes regardless of data format and with digital television
formats used in Japan, the US and EU.

Researchers said it is capable of distinguishing visual
features in images from any data format by first converting them
to a unified format and then identifying features in the image by
the wavelengths of the colors that make up the picture or
scene.

The file generated in unified format is only 63 bits, or about
1/30th the size of files used in typical previous attempts at such
a search engine, said NEC. The prototype is said to perform
30 times faster than any previous technology, with additional accuracy and less hardware requirements.

"The results indicate the search engine is able to locate
images 10 times more accurately, and find them within one
second," said NEC. "Moreover, the engine is capable of
searching through and identifying pictures correctly from
libraries of thousands of digital images consisting of
gigabytes of data, making it the highest performance graphics
search engine in the world."

The NEC search engine has been selected as part of an
experimental model for the next-generation MPEG-7 video
format.

Its main application is to meet the demands of a home video
server, that collects video and photographic data on low-cost,
high volume, hard disk drives. The primary requirement of such
a server will be the ability to search for data accurately and
quickly, said NEC

"The researchers will continue their work to support the
development of advanced digital electronic appliances, and
are looking to develop a product based on this technology at
the earliest opportunity," said NEC.

Reported By Newsbytes.com, http://www.newsbytes.com.