Text-based searching of image data

A text-based image searching system, comprising:

• a processor with access to associated memory, the associated memory storing:
• a first associated database comprising a plurality of annotated entries, each entry having a visual signature and annotation associated therewith, and
• a second associated database comprising a plurality of entries, each entry having a visual signature associated therewith;
• memory in communication with the processor, which stores instructions which are executed by the processor for:
• receiving a query which comprises a character string,
• computing a string similarity measure between the query character string and an annotation associated with each of a plurality of entries in the first database, the string similarity measure corresponding to a number of edits to transform at least one of the query or annotation into the other,
• based on the computed string similarity measures, selecting a set of the entries from the associated first database, a visual signature being associated with each entry,
• retrieving at least one entry from a second database, based on a computed visual similarity measure which is based on visual signatures of each of a plurality of entries in the second database and the visual signatures of the entries in the selected set from the associated first database, and
• outputting information corresponding to the least one of the retrieved entries.

A method for text-based searching of image data comprising:

• receiving a query into memory, the query comprising a character string, each of the characters in the string being selected form a finite set of characters;
• with a computer processor, calculating a string similarity measure between the character string of the query and an annotation associated with each of a plurality of visual signatures of captured images stored in a first database, the annotation comprising a character string, each of the characters in the string being selected from the finite set of characters;
• selecting a first set of visual signatures from the plurality of visual signatures in the first database based on the computed string similarity measures, the computed string similarity measures corresponding to a number of edits to at least one of the query or annotation;
• retrieving a set of images from a second database based on a computed measure of similarity between the visual signatures in the first set of visual signatures and visual signatures of images in the second database.