Find a matching item in a picture software. Possible?

Question

I am tinkering with the idea of writing an app and like to find out if the following is possible and what language you guys would recommend.

Here is what the app needs to do.

Locate matching items in a picture, based on another picture with the source image. Should not be an exact match, rather similar or close enough to it.

Example: Source image is a tree, larger image would have all trees highlighted.

Any suggestions are welcome.

Thank you.

Answer 1

As Bob said, anything is possible. But, you realize this is really, really hard, right? What you are describing is the holy grail of image processing. There are some systems that can come close to what you are describing, but none of them are perfect. It sounds easy because the human mind can do this type of processing very easily. But making computers do it is very hard.

In your example, how would the system identify trees of different size? What if they overlap or there are other objects in the image that partially cover the trees? Some trees are tall and narrow and some are shorter and bushier. Trunks come in all different shapes and sizes. Camera perspective plays a role in what the tree looks like also. With all of those variables and many others, the problem becomes very difficult and results become unreliable.

Answer 2

Check out this site http://www.imagecomparer.com/ It is close to what you're talking about I think. I have an antique lamp I have had no luck finding any information on...software like you speak of would be incredibly helpful.