Semantic Visual Identifiers for Meaning-Stable Image Matching
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing systems struggle to determine whether two visual representations convey the same overall meaning or signified, especially when they undergo changes in content details without explicit links, leading to difficulties in identifying and managing related visual representations.
Innovation Solution
Generate identifiers for visual representations using content-independent semantic metadata elements, employing rulesets that include specific metadata properties and hash functions to ensure that visual representations with the same signified receive the same identifier, while those with different signifieds get different identifiers.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If visual representations are modified to reflect evolving content details, then the visual representation accurately represents current processes, but the identifier cannot distinguish between different signifieds
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the identification process into two independent parts: content-independent semantic metadata elements that capture the overall signified meaning, and content-dependent visual elements that capture specific details. By separating these aspects, the system can maintain stable identifiers for the same signified while allowing content variations, resolving the contradiction between identification accuracy and adaptability to content changes.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces content-independent semantic metadata elements as an intermediary layer between the visual representation and the identifier. These metadata elements act as a mediator that abstracts the essential meaning from the specific visual content, enabling the system to identify representations by their semantic meaning rather than their specific visual details, thus resolving the contradiction.
2Reliability
If content-independent semantic metadata elements are used for identification, then visual representations with the same signified receive the same identifier, but the system becomes more complex
Solution Approach 1:
The patent makes the content-independent semantic metadata elements universal by defining them as a standardized set of properties that can be extracted from various types of visual representations. These elements serve multiple functions: they enable consistent identification, support semantic search, and facilitate interoperability between different systems, thereby achieving reliable identifier consistency without proportionally increasing system complexity.
3Ease of operation
If explicit links are provided between visual representations, then related representations can be easily identified, but the system loses flexibility in determining relationships
Solution Approach 1:
The patent enables visual representations to self-identify their relationships through the content-independent semantic metadata elements. Instead of requiring explicit links to be manually provided, the system automatically determines relationships by comparing the semantic metadata of different representations, allowing the data itself to serve the identification function and maintaining flexibility in relationship determination.
Data Source
AI summary
Visual representations represented in computer files can undergo various changes, in terms of specific visual details in a visual representation, without changing the semantics of what is represented. The present disclosure provides techniques and solutions for generating an identifier for a visual representation using one or more content-independent semantic metadata elements. Content-independent semantic properties are those that do not correspond to individual visual elements in a visual representation, or to properties of a visual representation that do not contribute to a description of an overall semantic provided by the visual representation. Disclosed techniques can be used to identify when a visual representation is generated or imported that has the same overall semantic, as indicated by the identifier, as another visual representation. The two visual representations can have the same or different image elements. Disclosed techniques also provide that visual representations that have a different overall semantic are assigned different identifiers.