Webupon

In 2006, Systemonelabs released a not so practical but seriously addictive image search engine/game/time-waster named Retrievr. Still currently in beta, this search engine retrieves images from selected Flickr pictures according to a sketch you make, or by an image you can upload from your computer or the internet.

Verdict

Does it actually work? Well, yes and no. That really depends on your expectations. In the few searches that I have done with this inspirational search engine, the results were fairly good, and sometimes even remarkable, although the quality of the results definitely relies on the level of artistic sophistication. In general, the artistic technique that most of us can come up with is enough to make some sense out this this search engine, but it takes a while to get the feel of the different ways it matches results to your sketches or images. Just don’t plan on drawing two lines and a scribble and expect to get a bunny. In my searches, the smaller sketches often yielded better results.

Longevity potential

The idea of drawing an image and having a search engine crawl and display similar images from the web is obviously a very appealing one. Although this site has been around for awhile and hasn’t really taken off, the site might receive some more attention if the service would continue to improve and expand their database of images.

Although the search is supposedly made according to the image, it seems that the color choice is very influential, and although the results aren’t always that accurate, it may be great for the more artistically inclined, or at least for those who just want to sit and fool around with it.