Macroglossa was a
visual search engine based on the comparison of images, coming from an Italian Group. The development of the project began in 2009. In April 2010 is released the first public
alpha
Alpha (uppercase , lowercase ) is the first letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of one. Alpha is derived from the Phoenician letter ''aleph'' , whose name comes from the West Semitic word for ' ...
. Users can upload photos or images that they are not sure what they are to determine what the images contain. Macroglossa compares images to return search results based on specific search categories. The engine does not use technologies and solutions such as
OCR,
tags, vocabulary trees. The comparison is directly based on the contents of the image which the user wants to know more.
Included features are the categorization of the elements, the ability to search specific portions of the image or start a search from a video file, but the main function is to simulate a digital eye on trying to find similarities of an unknown subject.
This technology allows users to pull results from collections of visual content without using tags for search. The visuals can be
crowd sourced. In addition, Macroglosssa can also be used as a reverse image search to find
orphan works
An orphan work is a copyright-protected work for which rightsholders are positively indeterminate or uncontactable. Sometimes the names of the originators or rightsholders are known, yet it is impossible to contact them because additional details ...
and possible violations of copyright of images.
Macroglossa supports all popular image extensions such
jpeg
JPEG ( , short for Joint Photographic Experts Group and sometimes retroactively referred to as JPEG 1) is a commonly used method of lossy compression for digital images, particularly for those images produced by digital photography. The degr ...
,
png,
bmp,
gif
The Graphics Interchange Format (GIF; or , ) is a Raster graphics, bitmap Image file formats, image format that was developed by a team at the online services provider CompuServe led by American computer scientist Steve Wilhite and released ...
and video formats such
avi,
mov,
mp4,
m4v,
3gp,
wmv,
mpeg
The Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) is an alliance of working groups established jointly by International Organization for Standardization, ISO and International Electrotechnical Commission, IEC that sets standards for media coding, includ ...
.
Macroglossa enters
beta
Beta (, ; uppercase , lowercase , or cursive ; or ) is the second letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 2. In Ancient Greek, beta represented the voiced bilabial plosive . In Modern Greek, it represe ...
stage in September 2011 and at the same time open to the public the opportunity to use the developed
interfaces
Interface or interfacing may refer to:
Academic journals
* ''Interface'' (journal), by the Electrochemical Society
* '' Interface, Journal of Applied Linguistics'', now merged with ''ITL International Journal of Applied Linguistics''
* '' Inter ...
( Api for web and mobile applications ) in order to expand the use of the engine in the
B2B and
B2C
Direct-to-consumer (DTC or D2C) or business-to-consumer (B2C) is the business model of selling products directly to customers and thereby bypassing any third-party retailers, wholesalers, or middlemen. Direct-to-consumer sales are usually transa ...
fields. Macroglossa becomes a
SaaS
Software as a service (SaaS ) is a cloud computing service model where the provider offers use of application software to a client and manages all needed physical and software resources. SaaS is usually accessed via a web application. Unlike oth ...
.
API
An application programming interface (API) is a connection between computers or between computer programs. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how to build ...
are distributed on three levels : free, basic, and premium. The free API has limited use, but basic and premium do not. The premium API also offers custom services allowing customers to extend and mold the features offered by computer vision.
[J. R. MartÃnez-de Dios, C. Serna y A. Ollero.]
Computer vision and robotics techniques in fish farms
, Robotica. Vo. 21. No. 3. Editor Cambridge University Press. June 2003.
Discontinued as the site is dead since February 2016.
References
External links
* {{Official website, http://www.macroglossa.com
Internet search engines
Multimedia
Image search