{
  "altLabels": [
    "Image Search",
    "Visual Search"
  ],
  "definition": "A retrieval task in which the target items are images or image-like visual objects.",
  "derivedRelations": [
    {
      "target": "reverse-image-search",
      "type": "narrower"
    },
    {
      "note": "Image retrieval targets images; multimodal retrieval is broader and may involve images, text, video, audio, tables, or combinations of modalities.",
      "target": "multimodal-retrieval",
      "type": "notEquivalentTo"
    },
    {
      "target": "trecvid",
      "type": "related"
    }
  ],
  "distinctions": [
    {
      "reason": "Image retrieval targets images; cross-modal retrieval crosses between different query and result modalities.",
      "statement": "Image Retrieval is not Cross-Modal Retrieval.",
      "target": "cross-modal-retrieval",
      "targetLabel": "Cross-Modal Retrieval",
      "targetUri": "https://id.searchplex.net/cross-modal-retrieval/"
    },
    {
      "reason": "Image retrieval retrieves images in general; reverse image search specifically uses an image or visual example as the query.",
      "statement": "Image Retrieval is not Reverse Image Search.",
      "target": "reverse-image-search",
      "targetLabel": "Reverse Image Search",
      "targetUri": "https://id.searchplex.net/reverse-image-search/"
    },
    {
      "reason": "Image retrieval names the target modality; semantic search names a meaning-oriented retrieval goal or capability.",
      "statement": "Image Retrieval is not Semantic Search.",
      "target": "semantic-search",
      "targetLabel": "Semantic Search",
      "targetUri": "https://id.searchplex.net/semantic-search/"
    }
  ],
  "id": "image-retrieval",
  "kind": "Task",
  "license": "https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/",
  "links": [
    {
      "label": "Content-Based Image Retrieval",
      "type": "canonicalSurvey",
      "url": "https://doi.org/10.1145/3448154"
    }
  ],
  "modifiedAt": "2026-09-14T06:43:46Z",
  "prefLabel": "Image Retrieval",
  "publisher": {
    "name": "Searchplex",
    "url": "https://searchplex.net/"
  },
  "relations": [
    {
      "target": "multimodal-retrieval",
      "type": "broader"
    },
    {
      "note": "Image retrieval targets images; cross-modal retrieval crosses between different query and result modalities.",
      "target": "cross-modal-retrieval",
      "type": "notEquivalentTo"
    },
    {
      "note": "Image retrieval retrieves images in general; reverse image search specifically uses an image or visual example as the query.",
      "target": "reverse-image-search",
      "type": "notEquivalentTo"
    },
    {
      "note": "Image retrieval names the target modality; semantic search names a meaning-oriented retrieval goal or capability.",
      "target": "semantic-search",
      "type": "notEquivalentTo"
    },
    {
      "target": "cross-modal-retrieval",
      "type": "related"
    },
    {
      "target": "semantic-search",
      "type": "related"
    },
    {
      "target": "vector-search",
      "type": "related"
    }
  ],
  "representations": {
    "html": "https://id.searchplex.net/image-retrieval/",
    "json": "https://id.searchplex.net/image-retrieval.json",
    "jsonld": "https://id.searchplex.net/image-retrieval.jsonld"
  },
  "scheme": "https://id.searchplex.net/scheme/",
  "scopeNote": "Image retrieval may use text queries, metadata, visual features, embeddings, or example images. In industry it is often called image search or visual search. It is distinct from reverse image search, where the query itself is an image, and from cross-modal retrieval, where query and target modalities differ.",
  "status": "published",
  "terms": [
    {
      "community": "commerce-search",
      "label": "Visual Product Search",
      "usage": "nearSynonym"
    },
    {
      "community": "industry",
      "label": "Vision Search",
      "usage": "informal"
    }
  ],
  "uri": "https://id.searchplex.net/image-retrieval/"
}