Search By Sketching

This is a fun new experimental service which lets you search and explore a selection of Flickr images by drawing a rough sketch.

It will not recognise what you are drawing - say a corporate logo or a face for example, which would be a very interesting way of searching (although if you are searching for a chair, whiy not just type in the word chair) - but rather examines the colours and composition, delivering you results that are similar to your sketch. Draw a big red circle and you will get cherries and strawberries. Draw a yellow rectangle under a blue one, and you'll get images of the sea.

This is a great way of searching for images that you want to match certain colour ways or moods. Possibly one day it could be a way of searching for that elusive image in your collection that was not tagged in a searchable way.

What ever it's practical applications, it is a fun tool to play with. Have a play here.

Thanks to Peter for the link.

UPDATE:
This is another nice search tool for Flckr - where you can search by predominant colour of the image. View Here.