US Patent 11010421 Techniques for modifying a query image

A computer-implemented technique is described herein for performing an image-based search that allows a user to create a custom query image that expresses the user's search intent. The technique generates the query image based on one or more input images and/or one or more information items that describe at least one desired characteristic of the query image. The technique then submits the query image to a search engine, and, in response, receives a set of candidate images that match the query image. In one implementation, the technique constructs the query image using a decoder neural network that operates on a mixed latent variable vector. In one approach, the technique uses a generative adversarial network (GAN) to produce the decoder neural network.