Diving Deeper into Advanced Document Retrieval with ColPali — Session 2

Are you struggling with retrieving information from complex documents that contain a mix of text, images, and tables?

Welcome back to our exploration of ColPali, the cutting-edge technique for advanced document retrieval. In this second session, we’ll be diving deeper into the indexing process, examining how ColPali handles PDF documents, and exploring the full end-to-end architecture of a retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) system incorporating this powerful technique.

The Indexing Process: From PDF to Searchable Data

The heart of ColPali’s power lies in its sophisticated indexing process. Let’s break down the key steps:

1. Page Processing

The journey begins with converting each page of a PDF document into an image. This transformation allows ColPali to work with visual information, not just text.

2. Patch Creation

Next, each page image is divided into smaller “patches” — for instance, an input PDF document broken down into 1,030 patches of roughly 32x32 pixels each. This granular approach allows for more precise information retrieval later on.