Since January 2020 it is possible to search the Muziekweb catalogue with images of album covers. You can search for all images that are present in the catalogue of both the front and back side of the album covers. The catalog contains almost 1.2 million images.
Take a picture of an LP, CD or DVD cover and send the image via the search input on the website. You can use your mobile phone's camera to do this.
To search, an image stored on your PC can be used. Drag this image to the indicated frame on the web page and release the image. You can also open a file by clicking on the camera.
On your mobile you can use the camera of the phone. Visit the cover-search webpage and click on the button with the camera image. For the best results, the album cover should be covering the biggest area of the photo. Also try to ensure that there is as little reflection of sunlight or light bulbs as possible. It doesn't matter if the cover is tilted or rotated in the picture.
After the photo has been sent, a search is done in the image catalogue to find the most matching images. The results are displayed on the search page after a few seconds. Clicking on a result opens the album page of that matched image.
Go to the webpage for the cover search:
An example of the search system on a mobile phone:
To create a search index of images we use the open source software OpenCV. This software uses an algorithm to analyze all images in the catalogue of Muziekweb and built a search index from the properties in the images. The images, which are used as search query, are analysed with the same algorithm and the found properties are then queried in the index. The most similar images are returned as a result.
For more information you can ask questions by e-mail: automatisering@muziekweb.nl.
The image you send as a search query will not be stored or saved anywhere. Therefore, the results of the search cannot be reproduced without resending the image.
