Reference image based material retrieval

Abstract

Techniques for reference image based material retrieval are described that support identification of procedural materials based on visual features of input images. A processing device, for instance, receives an input image that has a particular visual appearance. The processing device generates a histogram representation of the input image that represents a color prominence of the input image and generates a color distribution based on the color prominence. The processing device leverages a vision language model to filter candidate procedural materials by a semantic similarity to the input image. The processing device then identifies a procedural material that has a visual similarity to the particular visual appearance by comparing the color distribution for the input image to color distributions associated with the filtered candidate procedural materials. In this way, the techniques described herein support efficient retrieval of procedural materials based on color and on semantic features of the input image.