1. A method of searching reference signatures for a query image, the method comprising: storing a plurality of N dimension reference signatures together beginning at a starting location in a reference signature database, wherein each reference signature is stored with a link to a corresponding reference image; generating an N dimension query signature and a traversal hash query signature for a query image; and searching the reference signature database using the traversal hash query signature as an address into the reference signature database to find similar signatures that are within a specified signature distance R from each other, wherein the similar signatures represent reference images that are similar to the query image.