It's a bold assertion, but Image Metrics, a small Manchester-based company, is claiming to be the first company to teach computers to understand images rather than merely to process them. The software engine at the heart of its technology, called Optasia, has applications across a broad spectrum of disciplines, from medical diagnostic imaging through security to animation for cartoons

Companies at the top of the special effects tree like Industrial Light and Magic are already mulling over Optasia's potential for their animated adventures. The Digital Animation Group, one of the UK's leading creators of avatars, virtual personalities, has a stake in Image Metrics.

Nicholas Perrett, the company's marketing director, says Optasia is based on advanced Baysian statistics, a flavour of probability theory. He explains that humans comprehend images because they have a preconceived picture of what something should look like stored away in their brains - they don't confuse cows with horses.

Similarly, Optasia has a set of models which it compares to what it "sees". Building the database takes only days or weeks, rather than the months and years required using conventional computer vision methods and it can be undertaken by non-experts, Perrett claims.