Image object retrieval based on aggregation of visual annotations

A computer-implemented method comprising steps of:

• receiving a set of one or more query terms;
• selecting, from an image corpus, a set of sample images that are associated with annotations that match one or more of the query terms;
• based on the sample images in the set of sample images, generating composite data that represents at least one duplicate visual characteristic;
• wherein the at least one duplicate visual characteristic is a visual characteristic that is possessed by multiple sample images in the set of sample images;
• determining a set of candidate images that possess visual characteristics that are similar to the at least one visual characteristic represented by the composite data;
• and
• returning at least a subset of candidate images, from the set of candidate images, as results of a query that contained the set of query terms;
• wherein the steps are performed by at least one computing device.

A computer-implemented method comprising steps of:

• for each particular sample image of a first set of sample images, selecting, from an image corpus, a separate set of candidate images that are visually similar to that particular sample image, thereby producing a first plurality of sets of candidate images;
• aggregating the first plurality of sets of candidate images to produce a first aggregated list of images;
• determining a first precision score that is based on a measure of relevance of images in the first aggregated list of images to a specified set of query terms;
• for each particular sample image of a second set of sample images, selecting, from the image corpus, a separate set of candidate images that are visually similar to that particular sample image, thereby producing a second plurality of sets of candidate images;
• aggregating the second plurality of sets of candidate images to produce a second aggregated list of images;
• determining a second precision score that is based on a measure of relevance of images in the second aggregated list of images to the specified set of query terms;
• wherein a quantity of sample images in the second set of sample images is greater than a quantity of sample images in the first set of sample images;
• and
• based at least in part on the first precision score and the second precision score, determining a quantity of sample images to be used in performing future searches for images in the image corpus;
• wherein the steps are performed by at least one computing device.