TRENDS

Avril 2008

Press release

Pertimm, Technical Manager for the TRENDS joint European project.

Paris, April 7, 2008 – Pertimm, a French publisher of “search engine” solutions, is the Technical Manager for the entire “Trends Research Enabler for Design Specifications” Project.

The TRENDS project covers the development of a simplified access to Web-based resources for designers, with the creation of a system providing a complete working environment. The system will help them locate relevant material, structure this material for their design activity requirements and identify trends.

The project, financed by the European Commission and coordinated by SERAM, is being developed in partnership with companies and research laboratories: CRF (Italy), Stile BERTONE (Italy), Pertimm (France), Robotiker (Spain), University of Leeds (UK), University of Wales Cardiff (UK), INRIA (France), SERAM, Société d’Etudes et de Recherche de l’ENSAM (France)

Expected technical advances

For this project, three innovative technologies are currently being applied: intelligent Web "crawling", automatic image analysis and a semantic multimedia search engine. These technologies will then be linked by a man-machine interface that will bring together search by text and image, thereby providing improved ergonomic functionality for the end users.

The three year project has just celebrated its second anniversary and a prototype making use of the various technical components was presented to the European Community in February 2008.

There are a number of stages to the project:

• The construction of an image database: 24 sectors have been identified and a list of web sites defined for each of them. The construction of this image database has allowed the validation of powerful and reliable tools for extracting information from the web (images and associated textual data).
• The creation of a platform for communications between all the software components (RMS: Request Management Server). This platform delivers a high level of flexibility to the system and openness for the integration of new search servers (several occurrences of current engines or new engines).
• Text search for images: Pertimm has implemented semantic text search techniques for images.
• Merging of text/image search (INRIA): This enables users to carry out search by combining image related criteria (color, shape, texture, etc.) and text criteria keywords, ontology, pertimmiseurs, etc.). The results are provided based on the classification used by the user with greater or lesser emphasis on the text criteria or the image criteria.

Pertimm, a key player in the project

The first objective of the project is to computerize what is often a manual process, of assembling and organizing data in order to bring out ideas and trends from an unsystematic image palette. This operation is made possible by Pertimm innovative search engine technology.

Pertimm is also responsible for managing two subprojects.

The aim of the “Semantic search technology” is to implant a semantic text and image search engine that will help designers find the visuals that best match with their requirements and this through the use of mixed text and image signatures. In achieving this, Pertimm and SERAM are collaborating on compiling the search concepts (the “Pertimmizers”) used by the designers in finding images in the database contents. These concepts are then applied in the search engine which also indexes the ontology and text-image links.

Pertimm is also supervising the “Database grabbing and Management” subproject which aims to create and manage the database that supplies the images for the designers. The development of the Meta Search Engine (MTSE) making it possible to find documents containing images using advanced techniques, and the supply of the database management and maintenance tools, are two essential components of this subproject.

Advantages

• Base of two million images
• Pertimm semantic text search
• Selection with 24 design-dedicated sectors
• Image search by contents
• Generation of automatic trend scales
• Theme-based extraction of trends
• Powerful and fast search option (management of ontology and semantic adjectives)
• Dedicated request and result management interface (history, backup, sharing, etc.)

For more informations about this project : www.trendsproject.org

About Pertimm

Founded in 1997 by three engineers, Pertimm is a French software publisher with a specialization in multimedia search engines, using linguistics and semantics to enable the “discovery of knowledge” and this regardless of the nature, the structure or the organization of the data media.

Located in France, Asnières sur Seine (92) and Valence (26), and in the United States, Pertimm has a staff of 20. The company was awarded the Anvar Innovative Start-up Label prize in 2004.

About SERAM

Société d’Etudes et de Recherche de l’Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Arts et métiers - Set up in 1973 to promote the research and scientific, technical and industrial studies conducted within ENSAM graduate & research centers (Centres d’Enseignement et de Recherche de l’Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Arts et Métiers), SERAM carries out innovative research and development work in the fields of mechanical and industrial engineering.

Its aim is to develop contractual relations with the industrial world. It manages in excess of 600 contracts a year with a number of key economic players (major national and international groups and SMEs, French and European public authorities, associations, etc.).

SERAM has 9 centers located in Aix-en-Provence, Angers, Bordeaux-Talence, Châlons-en-Champagne, Chambéry, Cluny, Lille, Metz and Paris. It manages the work of 23 laboratories in all of the ENSAM centers and other partner establishments.