IMAVIS was born as an academic spin-off of the Vision Mathematics research group of the University of Bologna. The main research theme carried out within the group that motivated
the technological transfer is shape analysis.

Size functions, an innovative technique based on shape topology that quantatively describes visual similarities between shapes, was proposed by the Vision Mathematics group as a versatile tool to overcome the limits
 of methods currently available.

The shape descriptors that today IMAVIS spreads outside the world of scientific
research are highly modular and descriptive, also they are robust to noise,
and adaptable to many different applications.

Here is a list of the application domains were Size Functions were applied with success:

• signature recognition with and without temporal information;
• hand-drawn sketches classification;
• leucocytes classification;
• anomaly detection in electrocardiograms;
• moles-melanomas classification;
• content-based image retrieval;
• deaf sign recognition;
• silhouette classification;
• trade-marks classification and retrieval.
• 
  
  

More information on Size Functions can be found at the Vision Mathematics Group website.