Beta, 12 February 2021 User Manual
How to use ICONO Here’s a quick video to show you how to get started. ICONO is a natural language video and image search engine. What it means is that it is capable of understanding what you’re looking for when you write it naturally, and the content of an image.
Requirements ICONO is using the power of AI to search your files. Therefore it has specific requirements. - Windows 7 or higher, 64 bit - A NVIDIA video card, with CUDA installed - 3Gb of RAM or higher - 5gb of disk space for the app, more for the video database
ICONO in depth ICONO is built in three columns, each used for one function.
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1 - To split the videos
Two windows should open. A black logging window, and a new tab on your browser, with ICONO’s interface
This is the part you only use when you want to build your database, or add videos to it. First, put all your videos in one folder, called, for example, “VIDEOS”. Make sure this folder is, itself, in an empty folder. This is where you will keep your database of videos and thumbnails, as well as the results of your queries.
Now, click on the “Select videos folder”.
Once this is done, open ICONO by double clicking the ICONO shortcut.
Either browse, or copy paste the path to the VIDEOS folder with all your videos. If you copy paste, click on Go. Then, click OK. You will notice the black logging window will start processing the files.
This is what your folder should look like now.
You should now have two new folders, where your VIDEOS folder was. One named “PROCESSED_VIDEOS”, and the other named “THUMBNAILS”. The VIDEOS folder should be empty at the end of the process.
Why these names? For performance reasons, ICONO does not scan every frame of every video. Instead, it will first detect the cuts in every videos, and split the file to have one shot per file. Then, for each shot, it will create two thumbnails (in .JPGs): one for the first frame, one for the middle frame. These are the files that will be analyzed when searching.
Note, in the interface, the little box at the bottom left called “Cut Detect Sensitivity”. ICONO automatically detects cuts in videos and make them into individual files. However, depending on the video (especially ones with a lot of fade ins and outs), the default settings might not work perfectly, either not seeing a cut where this is one or seeing too many cuts. You can correct this by inputting a number between 0 (super sensitive) and 100 (no cut detection).
2 - To make a database This is the central part of ICONO. First, input a project name. For each query, ICONO will save the results to a file so that you don’t have to process all the files again. That file, the “database”, will be named after your project name. Then, click on “Select the thumbnails folder”, and navigate to your thumbnails folder previously created. If you split videos in this session and didn’t close ICONO, it should know automatically where the THUMBNAILS folder is. Then, enter your query. You can enter multiple ones, just don’t forget to separate them with a coma (Ex: a bear, a girl dancing, a boat sinking). It should also recognize text, so if you want to find every shot where “WELCOME TO PARIS” is written, you can simply input “WELCOME TO PARIS” as your query. Note: sometimes, similar queries will yeild different results. Ie “a girl” and “a photograph of a girl” will be different, and the later should not return drawings.
Once you specified your search, you can either launch the search by clicking on “Make Database”, or specify some options. The “database-limit” is the number of results you want. When you have many videos, the search can return thousands of results. By default, ICONO will only return the 100 best results, but you can ask for more, or less. The search threshold is different, and to understand it you must understand how ICONO works. Whenever you make a query, ICONO will return a percentage based on how likely your query match the picture. If it is sure, it will give you a 100% rating, but most often, it will be less than that. By default, everything below 90% accuracy is discarded. In these 10 remaining percent, maybe not all results will be perfect, but it should be good enough to save you hours of work. Sorting through 15 results is faster than sorting through 1000.
Note the percentage next to the path: here, it mistakes a wolf for a bear, but is only 99.46% sure.
You will know the search is done when the interface updates, and shows you, in order, the results. It will show you the most likely results first, and then go through the list, so the first results should be the ones that fit best your query. This is what the logging window should look like after you clicked on “Make Database”. The AI takes a few seconds to load, so don’t worry if it appears stuck at first, this is normal.
You will also find a new folder in your root folder: “RESULTS”.
In the “RESULTS” folder, you will find all your previous queries, one per folder. In each of these folders, you will find shortcuts to the files found by ICONO. You can now safely drag and drop them in your editing software of choice, for example.
This part is made to look at your previous queries within the app interface. The databases folder is not with your videos, it is in the same folder as your app. When you click on “Select database”, navigate or copy paste the path to the databases. Here, you will find several .json files with the name of your projects, followed by unique numbers. Select the file that you want to see, and then click ok. Without searching for the files again, ICONO will display the pictures that it previously found, along with their path and percentage.
3 - To display a database
If you made several queries, it will ask which query you want to display