How to compare images for similarity using java

Question

Recently I got an opportunity to work with Image Processing Technologies as a part of one of my projects and my task was to find matching images from an image store when a n

Answer 1

    **// This API will compare two image file //
// return true if both image files are equal else return false//**
public static boolean compareImage(File fileA, File fileB) {        
    try {
        // take buffer data from botm image files //
        BufferedImage biA = ImageIO.read(fileA);
        DataBuffer dbA = biA.getData().getDataBuffer();
        int sizeA = dbA.getSize();                      
        BufferedImage biB = ImageIO.read(fileB);
        DataBuffer dbB = biB.getData().getDataBuffer();
        int sizeB = dbB.getSize();
        // compare data-buffer objects //
        if(sizeA == sizeB) {
            for(int i=0; i<sizeA; i++) { 
                if(dbA.getElem(i) != dbB.getElem(i)) {
                    return false;
                }
            }
            return true;
        }
        else {
            return false;
        }
    } 
    catch (Exception e) { 
        System.out.println("Failed to compare image files ...");
        return  false;
    }
}

Answer 2

This API will compare two image file and return the percentage of similarity

public float compareImage(File fileA, File fileB) {

    float percentage = 0;
    try {
        // take buffer data from both image files //
        BufferedImage biA = ImageIO.read(fileA);
        DataBuffer dbA = biA.getData().getDataBuffer();
        int sizeA = dbA.getSize();
        BufferedImage biB = ImageIO.read(fileB);
        DataBuffer dbB = biB.getData().getDataBuffer();
        int sizeB = dbB.getSize();
        int count = 0;
        // compare data-buffer objects //
        if (sizeA == sizeB) {

            for (int i = 0; i < sizeA; i++) {

                if (dbA.getElem(i) == dbB.getElem(i)) {
                    count = count + 1;
                }

            }
            percentage = (count * 100) / sizeA;
        } else {
            System.out.println("Both the images are not of same size");
        }

    } catch (Exception e) {
        System.out.println("Failed to compare image files ...");
    }
    return percentage;
}

Answer 3

Depending on how different the images are, you could do something like this (pseudocode). It's very primitive, but should be pretty efficient. You could speed it up by taking random or patterned pixels instead of every one.

for x = 0 to image.size:
    for y = 0 to image.size:
        diff += abs(image1.get(x,y).red - image2.get(x,y).red)
        diff += abs(image1.get(x,y).blue - image2.get(x,y).blue)
        diff += abs(image1.get(x,y).green - image2.get(x,y).green)
    end
end

return ((float)(diff)) / ( x * y * 3)