1. A system comprising: a processor in communication with computer-readable storage media; an index maintained in the computer-readable storage media, the index comprising image data that describes one or more shape-descriptors, including edgel-based representations, of each of a plurality of images; a query receiving component that receives a visual input as a search query; a query parser that converts the visual input into at least one shape-descriptor, including an edgel-based representation; and a visual input matching component that matches the one or more shape-descriptors, including the edgel-based representations, of the plurality of images with the at least one shape-descriptor, including the edgel-based representation, of the visual input from the search query to identify at least one matching image of the plurality of images.