Binary representation for sparsely populated similarity

A system for identifying similar items in an inventory, the system comprising:

• an initial dataset formed of inventory data, the initial dataset including populated fields and null fields;
• a user interface;
• one or more processors;
• and
• computer-readable memory encoded with instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the system to:
• identify fields in the initial dataset;
• generate a binary representation dataset that corresponds to the initial dataset by representing the populated fields of the initial dataset with a first binary value and representing the null fields of the initial dataset with a second binary value such that each of the fields in the initial dataset has a corresponding field in a corresponding position in the binary representation dataset, the binary representation dataset being organized in rows and columns;
• receive an input via the user interface, the input indicating a selection of an item in the inventory and corresponding to a row of interest in the binary representation dataset;
• calculate a similarity measure for each pair of the row of interest and another row in the binary representation dataset;
• compare, based on the similarity measure, each of the pairs in the binary representation dataset to a corresponding pair of rows in the initial dataset to identify similar pairs of rows in the initial dataset;
• generate a recommendation of the similar items in the inventory based on the similar pairs of rows in the initial dataset;
• and
• output the recommendation.