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 new image is given. I started my project with googling "How to compare images using java" and I got some good articles on finding the similarity of two images. Almost all of them were based on four basic steps, they are:

1.Locating the Region of Interest (Where the Objects appear in the given image),
2.Re-sizing the ROIs in to a common size,
3.Substracting ROIs,
4.Calculating the Black and White Ratio of the resultant image after subtraction.

Though this sounds as a good algorithm to compare images, it takes a considerable amount of time after implementing it using JAI in my project. Therefore I have to find an alternate method of doing it.

Any suggestions?

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;
    }
}