Version 1.0

ImageTagger tags random images automatically.

How can software know how to tag random images? The software learns how to tag from a large amount of examples; each keyword has 1,000 to 10,000 sample images.

Attrasoft, Inc.

P. O. Box 13051

Savannah, GA, 31406

USA

gina@attrasoft.com

Demo: http://attraseek.com

Install the Software

The deliverable is either a zip file on a CD or downloaded from a web address. To install the software:

· Unzip CD:\ImageTagger2010.zip to a folder;

· Click “ImageTagger.exe” in the folder to run.

The software requires an updated Windows to run.

Statement of Copyright Restriction

The Attrasoft program that you purchased is copyrighted by Attrasoft, and your rights of ownership are subject to the limitations and restrictions imposed by the copyright laws outlined below.

It is against the law to copy, reproduce or transmit (including, without limitation, electronic transmission over any network) any part of the program except as permitted by the copyright act of the United States (title 17, United States code). However, you are permitted by law to write the contents of the program into the Machine memory of your computer so that the program may be executed. You are also permitted by law to make a back-up copy of the program subject to the following restrictions:

Each back-up copy must be treated in the same way as the original copy purchased from Attrasoft;
No copy (original, or back-up) may be used while another copy, (original, or back-up) is in use;
If you ever sell or give away the original copy of the program, all back-up copies must also be given to the same person, or destroyed.

In addition, this software is for the personal use only. This is defined as follows:

You cannot sell a service based any computation results produced by this software. You must purchase a separate annual license for commercial use from Attrasoft.
You cannot use the software to perform work for which you will get paid for. You must purchase a separate annual license for business use from Attrasoft.

This User’s Guide and Reference Manual is copyrighted by Attrasoft.

Install the Software. 2

Statement of Copyright Restriction. 3

1. Introduction. 5

2. How to Use ImageTagger 8

2.1 User’s Guide. 8

2.2 Learn by Example: Data. 10

2.3 Learn By Example: Training. 12

2.4 Learn By Example: Tagging. 14

2.5 Option Menu. 16

3. Related Issues. 19

3.1 Demo. 19

3.2 Potential Uses. 19

3.3 Q & A.. 20

1. Introduction

Attrasoft ImageTagger (Figure 1.1) tags random images in seven steps:

1. Select a Key Image Folder

2. Select a Keyword File

3. Get Signatures

4. Train

5. Select a Source

6. Get Signatures

7. Tag

These steps are implemented by seven buttons in the toolbar (Figure 1.2).

How can software know how to tag random images? The software learns how to tag from a large amount of examples; each keyword has 1,000 to 10,000 sample images.

The tagging of random images and a list of keywords is implemented via “Signature” matching, i.e. all images must be converted into signatures first.

Figure 1.1 ImageTagger.

Figure 1.2 Toolbar.

Figure 1.3 Three image Panels: Train, Source, and Results.

You can operate the Attrasoft ImageTagger from the Toolbar (Figure 1.2) or “Tagging” menu (Figure 2.1) alone. The ImageTagger has three image panels (Figure 1.3):

· Train Panel;

· Source Panel; and

· Results Panel.

Training: the images to teach the ImageTagger how to associate images with words.

Source: a folder of images to be tagged; all sub-folders will be included. Use the Home, Next (=>), and Previous (<=) buttons to see the images in the folder. The “Home” button goes to the first image; the “=>” button goes to the next image; and the “<=” goes to the previous image. All sub-folders will be included.

Results: images that have been tagged. Use the Home, Next (=>), and Previous (<=) buttons to see matched images. . The “Home” button goes to the first image; the “=>” button goes to the next image; and the “<=” goes to the previous image.

2. How to Use ImageTagger

Figure 2.1 Search Menu.

Attrasoft ImageTagger (Figure 1.1) tags random images in seven steps:

1. Select a Key Image Folder

2. Select a Keyword File

3. Get Signatures

4. Train

5. Select a Source

6. Get Signatures

7. Tag

2.1 User’s Guide

ImageTagger has 7 steps; the first three steps will be repeated as many times as necessary. The procedures are:

1. Select a Key Image Folder

2. Select a Keyword File

3. Get Signatures

4. Train

5. Select a Source

6. Get Signatures

7. Tag

Tagging/1. Select a Key Image Folder

Click the “Tagging/1. Select a Key Image Folder” menu item to select a folder that contains images to teach the ImageTagger.

Tagging/2. Select a Keyword File

Click the “Tagging/2. Select a Keyword File” menu item to select a text file that contains keywords associated to all of the images selected in the last step. The key image folder and keyword file together will teach the ImageTagger how to associate random images with words.

Tagging/3. Get Signatures

Click the “Tagging/3. Get Signatures” menu item to convert all of the images selected in step 1 into image signatures, which are the computation attributes. Steps 1, 2, and 3 will need to be repeated as many times as necessary until all keywords are covered.

Tagging/4. Train

Click the “Tagging/4. Train” menu item to generate the Train file to teach the ImageTagger.

Tagging/5. Select a Source

Click the “Tagging/1. Select a Key Image Folder” menu item to select a folder that contains random images to be tagged by the ImageTagger.

Tagging/6. Get Signatures

Click the “Tagging/6. Get Signatures” menu item to convert all of the images selected in step 5 into image signatures, which are the computation attributes.

Tagging/7. Tag

Click the “Tagging/7. Tag” menu item to tag all of the images selected in step 5. Steps 5, 6, and 7 will need to be repeated as many times as necessary until all images are tagged.

2.2 Learn by Example: Data

This example consists of 10 groups of words. Each group has 10 words and 1,000 images. The ImageTagger learns how to associate these 100 keywords with the 10,000 images. After learning, the ImageTagger tags random images related to the training images.

The deliverable is either a zip file, ImageTagger2010.zip, on a CD or downloaded from a web address. The example consists of 3 data DVDs and 13,000 images.

To install the software, unzip the file to a folder, for example:

C:\ImageTagger2010

Software is:

C:\ImageTagger2010\ImageTagger.exe

Copy the data to (See Figure 2.2):

C:\imagetagger\

Figure 2.2 Data used to train the ImageTagger. It has 10 training folders and 2 testing folders.

Each folder consists of 1,000 images and a file containing 10 words. Figure 2.3 shows the images in one of the folders. Figure 2.4 shows one of the text files in the folder.

Figure 2.3 One of 10 folders, each folder contains an average of 1,000 images.

Figure 2.4 One of 10 keyword files, each file contains an average of 10 words. The limit for each text file is 10 words. If you need more than 10 words for a group of images, produce two files.

2.3 Learn By Example: Training

The procedures are:

1. Select a Key Image Folder

2. Select a Keyword File

3. Get Signatures

4. Train

5. Select a Source

6. Get Signatures

7. Tag

Because we have 10 folders of training images, we will repeat the following 10 times:

1. Select a Key Image Folder

2. Select a Keyword File

3. Get Signatures

After that, we will do step 4, which prepares data for the training of the ImageTagger.

The learning phase will be 3 * 10 + 1 = 31 clicks:

1. Select a Key Image Folder

Click the “1” button in the Toolbar, and select folder, “C:\imagetagger\cellphone”, see Figure 2.5.

Figure 2.5 Step 1, selecting a key image folder. After selecting a folder, the first image will be displayed in the Train Panel. The list of image files will be displayed in the text window. The “Home” button goes to the first image; the “=>” button goes to the next image; and the “<=” goes to the previous image. All sub-folders will be included.

2. Select a Keyword File

Click the “2” button in the Toolbar to select “C:\imagetagger\cellphone0key.txt”; this step will take a minute; see Figure 2.6. The limit for each text file is 10 words. If you need more than 10 words for a group of images, produce two files.

Figure 2.6 Select the file for the keyword list.

3. Get Signatures

Click the “3” button in the Toolbar, and get image signatures for images in, “C:\imagetagger\cellphone”.

Repeat the above three steps for each of the 10 folders in Figure 2.2.

4. Train

Click the “4” button in the Toolbar to generate the Train file to teach the ImageTagger.

This completes training phase.

2.4 Learn By Example: Tagging

5. Select a Source

Click the “5” Button in the Toolbar and select folder, “C:\imagetagger\test”, see Figure 2.7.

Figure 2.7 Step 5, select a folder of images to be tagged.

Figure 2.8 Tag images. Images are tagged. Use the Home, Next, and Previous buttons to see matched images. The “Home” button goes to the first image; the “=>” button goes to the next image; and the “<=” goes to the previous image.

6. Get Signatures

Click the “6” button in the Toolbar, and get image signatures for images in the last step.

7. Tag

Click the “7” button in the Toolbar to tag; see results in Figure 2.8 and 2.9. Figure 2.9 shows the text output. Figure 2.8 shows the visual output. To see the first matched image, click the “Home” button in the Results Panel (See Figure 2.8).

Figure 2.9 Text Output.

2.5 Option Menu

Training will take some time; by separating the “Tagging/7. Tag” menu item into two steps (training and tagging), the first step will need to be repeated over and over again.

Option/Train

Click the “Option/Train” menu item to train the ImageTagger without tagging. Clicking the “Tagging/7. Tag” menu item will both train and tag images in a folder.

Option/Tag

Click the “Option/Tag” menu item to tag images without ImageTagger training. Clicking the “Tagging/7. Tag” menu item will both train and tag images in a folder.

The procedures for training are:

1. Select a Key Image Folder

2. Select a Keyword File

3. Get Signatures

· Select a Key Image Folder

· Select a Keyword File

· Get Signatures

· Select a Key Image Folder

· Select a Keyword File

· Get Signatures

· …

4. Train

The procedures for tagging are:

5. Select a Source

6. Get Signatures

7. Option/Training

8. Option/Tagging

· Select a Source

· Get Signatures

· Option/Tagging

· Select a Source

· Get Signatures

· Option/Tagging

3. Related Issues

3.1 Demo

For an image-recognition-only demo, go to:

http:\\attraseek.com

The Online demo has three steps:

· Browse (Select an Image)

· Upload

· Search

To get a Test Image:

· Click “Test Images”;

· Choose any image on the list and save the image to your computer.

To make a Search:

· Click the “Browse” button and select the image you just saved;

· Click the “Upload” button;

· Click the “Search” button.

NOTE: This is a demo that only has 1.5 million images. It is not meant to replicate a Net Search. Use of random images may not get a match. Please test with our 40,000 test images. As you can see from looking at the Test Images the range of image types is wide.

3.2 Potential Uses

We have listed some potential applications below:

(a) Application that requires assigning keywords to images, which can be labor intensive and expensive.

(b) Some images, when described by not enough keywords, will yield millions of results, producing low relevancy.

(d) Some images can be difficult to describe without expert specification; for example, there are 70,000 car wheel rims styles, and “car wheel rim” can mean one of 70,000 different objects.

(e) Some images can be mislabeled (human error or intentionally).

(f) Government / Law Firms need an automated search to identify Patent drawings / trademarks and more.

(g) Automated keyword generation to locate engineering drawings, graphs, charts, architectural designs, maps, document images, logos, etc. are required in many applications.

(h) Employees cannot memorize large amounts of images (in the order of 1000); manual image identification in such cases takes a long time.

(i) Employees cannot memorize large amounts of images (in the order of 1000); manual image identification in such cases has many errors.

(l) …

3.3 Q & A

For system integration of the ImageTagger into your work flow, contact: gina@attrasoft.com

For Image Tagging Service, contact: gina@attrasoft.com