Kitchen & Bath Business - January 2018 - 34

Tech Savvy

Image
Recognition
Designers have a new tool to
add to their bag of tricks
IMAGE RECOGNITION MEANS THAT COM-

PUTERS GAIN INFORMATION AND UNDER-

STANDING from digital images or video, and
they also analyze and categorize image data.
Designers can now search their files by image
instead of just text and automatically add meta
tags to images in their libraries - for example, a
hideaway door on a kitchen cabinet. A meta tag
or metadata is information that is not shown
in the image but is attached to the file, such as
descriptions, keywords, document authors, lastmodified dates, etc.
Image recognition, a type of artificial intelligence, is more advanced than just identifying an
image; it also has the capability to identify context.
Instead of identifying "two people in a kitchen,"
computers (like smartphones) can recognize that
the two people are at the kitchen sink with plates
in their hands and the water is turned on; thus
understanding and conveying that people are
doing dishes.
Below are some areas where designers can
benefit from image recognition, which is just in
its infancy.
"Automated Image Tagging. You can have your
image files tagged with metadata automatically
by a cloud service like Google Drive or Box
so they are easily searchable. You can literally
dump tons of photographs into one of these
cloud services, and it will attach meta tags for
you using AI. I was stunned to look at my Box
image files recently and see all the added meta
tags. If you've ever been in a design meeting
with clients, and you know you have the perfect
image to share with them - but you can't find it
right then - image recognition will be a game
changer for you.
"Reverse Image Search. You can now search online
by uploading an image to a service like Google
Reverse Image Search. I've used this to find
manufacturers of wallpaper and ceramic tile in
less than 30 seconds. I have also used this search
to identify products such as Kohler sinks and
metal finishes like copper for hoods.

SCOTT KOEHLER is a 27-year
veteran of the kitchen and bath
industry and owner of Dream
Kitchen Builders, a designbuild firm doing business in
North Carolina.

"Discovery. Designers love discovery and new inspiration, so for this example, I'm going to compare a search for a piece of cabinetry hardware by
text and then by image. By text, I type in "cabinetry hardware," and all my
results down at the bottom of the page are cabinetry hardware (top-right
photo). Next, I'm going to upload a piece of hardware to start the image
search, and although cabinetry hardware does come up, check out what
else the computer found based on the image and the "nickel" meta tag.
The screenshot of other nickel images is well down on the page, but on
the way there, I see images and shapes that I've never thought of using
for cabinet hardware (top-left photo).
For the whole history of computing, searching has been just by text,
which is narrow because you're searching for something very specific. Just
the opposite is true with images because images can convey many things
all at one time. Image search has opened the door for discovery.


Kitchen & Bath Business / JANUARY 2018 / KBBONLINE.COM / The official publication of KBIS (KBIS.com)

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Kitchen & Bath Business - January 2018

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