SBIR Phase I: Filtering Objectionable Imagery

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project describes a new and innovative approach for filtering objectionable image content distributed on the Internet. As Internet usage in the workplace has increased, companies have had to deal with issues such as loss of productivity, unnecessary bandwidth usage and legal liability due to employees viewing objectionable image content. This project provides an automated, intelligent, object recognition solution that understands objectionable image content based on attributes beyond, for example, skin color. The research leverages the award-winning machine learning technology for object-recognition in imagery. The methodology is widely recognized within the industry as the first instance of an adaptive software agent technology capable of object recognition through both spectral and spatial processing of image attributes. This project will leverage this technology to develop a visual content filter. The system will not only be able to filter objectionable imagery, it will also provide solutions for filtering any image content, or inversely, providing a user-specific profile for finding imagery of a user's choice.

As Internet usage in the workplace continues to increase, the research has strong benefits for government and private industry. The anticipated results are an adaptable commercial system that will continually improve the filtering of objectionable imagery from the database.