The Basics of Object Recognition

By Alex Blicharz, Software Engineer

Published: August 11, 2017

Object recognition is the area of artificial intelligence (AI) concerned with the abilities of robots and other AI implementations to recognize various things and entities. It is used in social media in everything from Snapchat filters and Pinterest Lens to the iOS photo library. This technology is utilized by brands to advertise in new and memorable ways. Brands who use these techniques are able to edge out their competition in ways that do not feel like traditional advertising. 

How it Works

Object recognition allows robots and AI programs to recognize objects from video and still camera images through 3D models, component identification, edge detection and analysis of appearances from different angles. Object recognition converges robotics, machine vision, neural networks and AI. An example of object recognition in technology you probably use is the iOS photo library. iOS is able to detect faces, food, etc. in your photo library using artificial intelligence that is taught to recognize these entities the way your own brain learns to recognize. Major advances of object recognition stand to revolutionize AI and robotics. 

Pinterest Lens and Object Recognition

Platforms such as Pinterest Lens use object recognition to create a visual search platform that rivals Google. Lens crawls through the data mine of Pinterest to find visuals that match a picture snapped on Pinterest’s camera. Lens users are able to take a picture of an ingredient, and Pinterest will pull recipes using this ingredient. With this advancement, brands are able to find ever more creative ways to advertise their products.

Want to learn more about object recognition? Check out this definition of object recognition. Then, fill out our contact form and let’s chat!