{
  "altLabels": [
    "Reverse Image Retrieval",
    "Search by Image",
    "Image-to-Image Search",
    "Similar Image Search"
  ],
  "definition": "An image-retrieval task in which the user provides an image, image URL, or visual example as the query to find visually similar, related, source, duplicate, or derivative images.",
  "distinctions": [
    {
      "reason": "Reverse image search is usually image-to-image or image-query retrieval; cross-modal retrieval crosses between different modalities such as text and image.",
      "statement": "Reverse Image Search is not Cross-Modal Retrieval.",
      "target": "cross-modal-retrieval",
      "targetLabel": "Cross-Modal Retrieval",
      "targetUri": "https://id.searchplex.net/cross-modal-retrieval/"
    },
    {
      "reason": "Reverse image search is a specific form of image retrieval where the query is an image or visual example.",
      "statement": "Reverse Image Search is not Image Retrieval.",
      "target": "image-retrieval",
      "targetLabel": "Image Retrieval",
      "targetUri": "https://id.searchplex.net/image-retrieval/"
    },
    {
      "reason": "Reverse image search may use vector search internally, but it is a user-facing image-query retrieval task.",
      "statement": "Reverse Image Search is not Vector Search.",
      "target": "vector-search",
      "targetLabel": "Vector Search",
      "targetUri": "https://id.searchplex.net/vector-search/"
    }
  ],
  "id": "reverse-image-search",
  "kind": "Task",
  "license": "https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/",
  "links": [
    {
      "label": "A Decade Survey of Content Based Image Retrieval using Deep Learning",
      "type": "canonicalSurvey",
      "url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2012.00641"
    },
    {
      "label": "Advancements in Content-Based Image Retrieval",
      "type": "canonicalSurvey",
      "url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2312.10089"
    }
  ],
  "modifiedAt": "2026-09-14T06:43:46Z",
  "prefLabel": "Reverse Image Search",
  "publisher": {
    "name": "Searchplex",
    "url": "https://searchplex.net/"
  },
  "relations": [
    {
      "target": "image-retrieval",
      "type": "broader"
    },
    {
      "note": "Reverse image search is usually image-to-image or image-query retrieval; cross-modal retrieval crosses between different modalities such as text and image.",
      "target": "cross-modal-retrieval",
      "type": "notEquivalentTo"
    },
    {
      "note": "Reverse image search is a specific form of image retrieval where the query is an image or visual example.",
      "target": "image-retrieval",
      "type": "notEquivalentTo"
    },
    {
      "note": "Reverse image search may use vector search internally, but it is a user-facing image-query retrieval task.",
      "target": "vector-search",
      "type": "notEquivalentTo"
    },
    {
      "target": "approximate-nearest-neighbor-search",
      "type": "related"
    },
    {
      "target": "embedding",
      "type": "related"
    },
    {
      "target": "vector-search",
      "type": "related"
    }
  ],
  "representations": {
    "html": "https://id.searchplex.net/reverse-image-search/",
    "json": "https://id.searchplex.net/reverse-image-search.json",
    "jsonld": "https://id.searchplex.net/reverse-image-search.jsonld"
  },
  "scheme": "https://id.searchplex.net/scheme/",
  "scopeNote": "Reverse image search is often implemented with content-based image retrieval techniques, visual embeddings, nearest-neighbor search, or perceptual similarity methods. It is distinct from image retrieval in general and from text-to-image cross-modal retrieval.",
  "status": "published",
  "terms": [
    {
      "community": "academic",
      "label": "Content-Based Image Retrieval",
      "usage": "nearSynonym"
    },
    {
      "community": "academic",
      "label": "CBIR",
      "usage": "abbreviation"
    },
    {
      "community": "industry",
      "label": "Query by Image",
      "usage": "nearSynonym"
    },
    {
      "community": "industry",
      "label": "Image Query Search",
      "usage": "informal"
    },
    {
      "community": "academic",
      "label": "Query by Example",
      "usage": "nearSynonym"
    }
  ],
  "uri": "https://id.searchplex.net/reverse-image-search/"
}