comparing 2 images

[Henrik Härkönen" <radix at kortis.to>]

On Wed, 14 May 2003 23:41:37 -0700, Joe Green wrote:

> I would like to take 2 images (scanned) and compare them to see if
> they are similar. An example (but not limited to), would be 2
> signatures.
> What would be the most suitable library/module to use for this (if
> any). I have been looking through the PIL documentation (yet to look
> into ImageMagick). Am I knocking down the wrong doors? Is this even
> do-able in Python (I need to maintain portability)?
 
I'm under the impression that PIL would be the most usable graphics 
handling module for python. Of course not 100% sure.:) PIL works
at least on linux and windows as far as I know, so portability should
be possible on those platforms. 

But, what comes to (automatic) comparing of similarities between images, 
I haven't seen much of modules around. One which I recently found is
Gamera, 

see: http://dkc.mse.jhu.edu/gamera/papers/gamera_python_2002/gamera.html

but I haven't studied that much yet. In theory, that could be used in
your purposes if I understand correctly. If you already haven't, you 
should get familiar with pattern recognition basics. So, basically, 
I guess the image handling issue is the smallest of problems, because 
it's going to act merely as a small tool for what you are planning to 
do. Of course good image routines help you with the task. 


Good luck with your mission! :)

--
Henrik