On 9/26/2011 1:32 PM, Andre Engels wrote:
Every small category is a part of a big category. A system such as this will not be able to specify plant species, but it might well be able to find pictures of plants. If it then gives a list of plant pictures that are not in some plant category, animal pictures that are not in animal category, buildings that are not in a regional building category, maps that are not in a map of category, paintings that are not in a painter category, famous people that are not in a people category etcetera, it could deliver those to volunteers to further classify.
The ImageCLEF people are getting such great results because they're working in a specific and limited domain
http://www.imageclef.org/2011/Plants
The goal is to identify plants by looking at their leaves. An obvious application is to build this into a mobile device -- you could snap a picture of a leaf on a plant or remove a leaf and photograph it against a good surface and it tells you what sort of plant you're looking at. This would be a great tool for any gardener's toolbox, anywhere on earth.
I'm looking forward to seeing people solve more problems like this.