DanitaDelimont.com launches visual search feature that actively learns; Innovative technology delivers faster, better results for creative professionals

"The technology is very fast and more effective than trying to narrow searches by entering more keywords."

Santa Barbara, CA - April 29th, 2005 - Danita Delimont Stock Photography today launched a powerful photo search feature that an industry expert says may be "the next major change in the way images are searched and found online."

DanitaDelimont.com sells worldwide travel, lifestyle and nature images to the tourism and publishing industries. The Bellevue, Washington firm is the first stock agency in the world to add active-learning visual search to its standard keyword search page.

The new search engine aims squarely at visually-oriented researchers, photo editors, art directors and other creatives who have struggled for years to translate the pictures or concepts in their heads into keywords.

"The technology is very fast and more effective than trying to narrow searches by entering more keywords,” said company president Danita Delimont. “Adding visual search works better than keywords alone when searching for concepts, moods, colors, or specific layout options. Now there’s no more worrying that the best image is buried on the next page. Our field testing proves that clients want this feature."

Unlike technologies that visually match to a single image, the VIMA Technologies solution adopted by DanitaDelimont.com learns from each positive and negative selection made during a search. Visual clues, even seemingly contradictory ones (e.g., a red flower and a yellow flower), are combined by advanced machine-learning to understand what the searcher has in mind.

"We are actually re-sorting the keyword search results and bringing the best visual matches right to the top. Just one click provides good results for many concepts, but feedback from multiple images quickly finds all the desirable images and cuts down significantly on scrolling," said VIMA CEO David Telleen-Lawton.

Both traditional keyword search and keyword with visual search options are now available to DanitaDelimont.com users. The company currently offers more than 70,000 images online.

Stock industry expert Jim Pickerell wrote in his Selling Stock newsletter that visual search "takes full advantage [of] the right-brain intuitive, subjective senses that are the strength of most creative people, rather than the left-brain functions that require them to define in words what it is they want. Art directors will love playing with such search results."

Pickerell predicted that photo researchers "will find visual search so attractive that they will only want to use sites that offer it, and will not want to struggle to define in words what they are seeking."

About VIMA Technologies, Inc.
VIMA’s patented image search and image categorization processes allow it to lead the industry in content-based image search and categorization for both speed and accuracy. VIMA is probably best known for the only active learning image search solution in the market and the only company offering tunable image categorization and filtering solutions. VIMA Technologies, Inc. is a privately financed company located in Goleta California, just across the street from the University of California at Santa Barbara. For more information, visit: www.VIMAtech.com.

About Danita Delimont Stock Photography
Danita Delimont Stock Photography is a stock photo agency specializing in worldwide travel, lifestyle and nature photography. The company represents about 160 professional photographers and sells images primarily to wholesale tour operators, cruise ship lines, airlines, textbook publishers and the travel press. The privately-held company is based in Bellevue, Washington. Additional information about Danita Delimont Stock Photography can be obtained via the company’s Web site located at: www.DanitaDelimont.com.

VIMA Technologies, Inc. is located at 120 Cremona Drive, Goleta, California 93117. You can reach us by telephone at 805-685-7067 or via email at info@VIMAtech.com.

For Media Inquiries, contact:

David Telleen-Lawton
Phone: (805)685-7067
Fax: (805)685-2178
DTL@VIMAtech.com