About Tiltomo

What is Tiltomo?

Tiltomo is a development site, where we test our search algorithms. Currently we are at Beta with our latest Visual Image Search Engine.

What is a Visual Image Search?

A Visual Search uses proprietary algorithms (mathematical calculations) to analyze the similarity & relationship between images.

Why create a Visual Search?

Our aim is to develop a Visual Search tool that makes it easier to find the images you like. Our approach is to allow free thinking, where search results are influenced by what you see. Our system encourages you to make a broad search and narrow the types of images you like. It's as simple as searching a keyword, then clicking the image you like. to see more. We feel this way of searching allows you to follow your own creative path, and find images that you might not normally look for.

What do we define as similar?

Similar can be very subjective. In our terms, "Similar" is either (Image Subject / Color / Texture) or (100% Color / Texture) depending on which search mode you choose.

Playground 1: Flickr

Why Flickr? We love Flickr and it seemed like the perfect playground for our technology. Flickr offers tag searching / browsing, group and cluster browsing. Flickr's database is growing by the minute and TILTOMO demonstrates a different way to find those images that we personally love.

We have used Two test Databases

We have created two separate image databases. These work independently of each other. They are:

  1. A 24 hour snapshot of around 140,000 general images that have been uploaded to flickr. These cover a variety of subjects and have many different tags; it's a great place to test the "Theme" aspect of our search.
  2. The Catchy Colors group. It has a large number of images that are visually stunning; it's a great place to test our "100% Color / Texture search".

We have 2 Visual Search modes

These produce quite different results and are defined as:

  1. Theme : Analysis of (Subject / Color / Texture) Use this mode if image subject is important. Theme is especially useful when used on the "General Images" database. It can be used to group images about a particular subject. It can also be used to group images photographed at a particular event. For example, if you see an image from a wedding, you can find more images by simply clicking "Find similar by Theme".

    You can also use Theme in conjunction with the link "Show ONLY images from the reference photographer". Clicking this will only show images from the reference photographer. This is useful if you only wish to see "Color / Texture" sorted images from one specific event taken by one photographer.
  2. Color / Texture : Analysis of (100% Color / Texture) Use this if you don't care about subject and want to see images with a similar "Color / Texture". This mode is especially useful on "Catchy Colors" where you can find images that have a certain visual feel.

Under the hood

Our CBIR (content based image retrieval) system uses advanced proprietary Subject, Color & Texture recognition algorithms to analyze image composition. It can process the relationship between several million images on a single medium specification machine in one day.

What Next?

  1. Fixing bugs ...
  2. Lots more cool stuff with more image groups

This is a work in progress and we would love to have a conversation with you. You can converse with us via email or via our blog.

We believe Tiltomo adds a new dimension to Flickr's wonderful images. Please play around and have fun.

A special thanks to yahoo & flickr for having such a generous API!!

The Tiltomo Team