Abstract: A computer-implemented method for searching a plurality of stored objects. Data objects are placed in a hash table, an ordered sequence of locations (probing sequence) in the hash table from a query object is generated and data objects in the hash table locations in the generated ordered sequence are examined to find objects whose relationships with the query object satisfy a certain predetermined function defined on pairs of objects.

Abstract: A content-addressable and searchable storage system for managing and exploring massive amounts of feature-rich data such as images, audio or scientific data, is shown. The system comprises a segmentation and feature extraction unit for segmenting data corresponding to an object into a plurality of data segments and generating a feature vector for each data segment; a sketch construction component for converting a feature vector into a compact bit-vector corresponding to the object; a similarity index comprising a plurality of compact bit-vectors corresponding to a plurality of objects; and an index insertion component for inserting a compact bit-vector corresponding to an object into the similarity index. The system may further comprise an indexing unit for identifying a candidate set of objects from said similarity index based upon a compact bit-vector corresponding to a query object.