A CBIR system based on saliency driven local image features and multi orientation texture features

In Content-based Image Retrieval (CBIR), the user provides the query image in which only a selective portion of the image carries the foremost vital information known as the object region of the image. However, the human visual system also focuses on a particular salient region of an image to instinctively understand its semantic meaning. Therefore, the human visual attention technique can be well imposed in the CBIR scheme. Inspired by these facts, we initially utilized the signature saliency map-based approach to decompose the image into its respective main object region (ObR) and non-object region (NObR). ObR possesses most of the vital image information, so block-level normalized singular value decomposition (SVD) has been used to extract salient features of the ObR. In most natural images, NObR plays a significant role in understanding the actual semantic meaning of the image. Accordingly, multi-directional texture features have been extracted from NObR using Gabor filter on different wavelengths. Since the importance of ObR and NObR features are not equal, a new homogeneity-based similarity matching approach has been devised to enhance retrieval accuracy. Finally, we have demonstrated retrieval performances using both the combined and distinct ObR and NObR features on seven standard coral, texture, object, and heterogeneous datasets. The experimental outcomes show that the proposed CBIR system has a promising retrieval efficiency and outperforms various existing systems substantially.     

基于融合特征的现勘图像检索结果优化算法

刑侦现勘图像数据库是具有保密性高、图像内容罕见等极具行业特色的图像数据库.针对现勘图像内容复杂、目标物体不明确的特点,提出了DCT-DCT波纹理特征,并与HSV颜色直方图特征、GIST特征相融合构成融合特征.与常用的图像特征相比,DCT-DCT波纹理特征能够得到较高的检索效率,而融合特征的平均检索查准率高于构成其本身的三种特征的平均检索查准率.最后,将语义分析技术引入到检索过程中,提出基于检索结果优化的现勘图像检索算法,利用支持向量机（Support Vector Machine,SVM）分类器对查询图像进行语义提取,并对初次检索的结果进行语义分析,根据初检结果中语义类别的占比选择二次检索方案,该算法能在按例查询的基础上进一步提高平均检索查准率.     

一种基于区域的动态分块图象检索方法

本文提出一种新颖的基于内容和图像检索方法，基于运动子块分割并根据视觉特性对不同区域做不同的加权，比较各子块相似度，分析相似度矩阵，并检索查询物体。通过将图象分割细化，充分利用了原图的颜色位置信息，通过实验，实现了对特定物体进行检索。该物体检索方法可进一步发展，为特定的后续处理奠定基础，如在人脸识别等功能中发挥重要作用。     

A new way for multidimensional medical data management: volume of interest (VOI)-based retrieval of medical images with visual and functional features.

The advances in digital medical imaging and storage in integrated databases are resulting in growing demands for efficient image retrieval and management. Content-based image retrieval (CBIR) refers to the retrieval of images from a database, using the visual features derived from the information in the image, and has become an attractive approach to managing large medical image archives. In conventional CBIR systems for medical images, images are often segmented into regions which are used to derive two-dimensional visual features for region-based queries. Although such approach has the advantage of including only relevant regions in the formulation of a query, medical images that are inherently multidimensional can potentially benefit from the multidimensional feature extraction which could open up new opportunities in visual feature extraction and retrieval. In this study, we present a volume of interest (VOI) based content-based retrieval of four-dimensional (three spatial and one temporal) dynamic PET images. By segmenting the images into VOIs consisting of functionally similar voxels (e.g., a tumor structure), multidimensional visual and functional features were extracted and used as region-based query features. A prototype VOI-based functional image retrieval system (VOI-FIRS) has been designed to demonstrate the proposed multidimensional feature extraction and retrieval. Experimental results show that the proposed system allows for the retrieval of related images that constitute similar visual and functional VOI features, and can find potential applications in medical data management, such as to aid in education, diagnosis, and statistical analysis.     

CLUE: cluster-based retrieval of images by unsupervised learning.

In a typical content-based image retrieval (CBIR) system, target images (images in the database) are sorted by feature similarities with respect to the query. Similarities among target images are usually ignored. This paper introduces a new technique, cluster-based retrieval of images by unsupervised learning (CLUE), for improving user interaction with image retrieval systems by fully exploiting the similarity information. CLUE retrieves image clusters by applying a graph-theoretic clustering algorithm to a collection of images in the vicinity of the query. Clustering in CLUE is dynamic. In particular, clusters formed depend on which images are retrieved in response to the query. CLUE can be combined with any real-valued symmetric similarity measure (metric or nonmetric). Thus, it may be embedded in many current CBIR systems, including relevance feedback systems. The performance of an experimental image retrieval system using CLUE is evaluated on a database of around 60,000 images from COREL. Empirical results demonstrate improved performance compared with a CBIR system using the same image similarity measure. In addition, results on images returned by Google's Image Search reveal the potential of applying CLUE to real-world image data and integrating CLUE as a part of the interface for keyword-based image retrieval systems.     

Similarity-based online feature selection in content-based image retrieval.

Content-based image retrieval (CBIR) has been more and more important in the last decade, and the gap between high-level semantic concepts and low-level visual features hinders further performance improvement. The problem of online feature selection is critical to really bridge this gap. In this paper, we investigate online feature selection in the relevance feedback learning process to improve the retrieval performance of the region-based image retrieval system. Our contributions are mainly in three areas. 1) A novel feature selection criterion is proposed, which is based on the psychological similarity between the positive and negative training sets. 2) An effective online feature selection algorithm is implemented in a boosting manner to select the most representative features for the current query concept and combine classifiers constructed over the selected features to retrieve images. 3) To apply the proposed feature selection method in region-based image retrieval systems, we propose a novel region-based representation to describe images in a uniform feature space with real-valued fuzzy features. Our system is suitable for online relevance feedback learning in CBIR by meeting the three requirements: learning with small size training set, the intrinsic asymmetry property of training samples, and the fast response requirement. Extensive experiments, including comparisons with many state-of-the-arts, show the effectiveness of our algorithm in improving the retrieval performance and saving the processing time.     

Image retrieval using both color and texture features

In order to improve the retrieval performance of images, this paper proposes an efficient approach for extracting and retrieving color images. The block diagram of our proposed approach to content-based image retrieval (CBIR) is given firstly, and then we introduce three image feature extracting arithmetic including color histogram, edge histogram and edge direction histogram, the histogram Euclidean distance, cosine distance and histogram intersection are used to measure the image level similarity. On the basis of using color and texture features separately, a new method for image retrieval using combined features is proposed. With the test for an image database including 766 general-purpose images and comparison and analysis of performance evaluation for features and similarity measures, our proposed retrieval approach demonstrates a promising performance. Experiment shows that combined features are superior to every single one of the three features in retrieval.     

基于内容图像分类技术中的特征分析

论文介绍了基于内容的图像检索技术(CBIR)的研究现状和相关技术,其中,特征提取是整个图像分类的关键,色彩和纹理都是CBIR常用到的图像视觉特征。文中提取了图像的颜色和纹理等六种特征．将所有的特征向量进行相应的组合,并采用SVM进行分类。最后,作者通过分析不同特征组合的识别效果,揭示了各种特征之间的内在联系,进而得到图像分类中的最佳特征组合。     

基于兴趣目标的图像检索

当前图像检索算法通常针对整体图像提取特征以完成检索任务.然而,在很多情况下用户只会关注图像的一部分,即他们的兴趣目标.此时,从整体图像提取的特征一部分是有效的,另一部分则是无效的且会对检索过程带来消极影响.为此,本文提出基于兴趣目标的图像检索方案,并借助于现有的显著性检测、图像分割、特征提取等技术实现一款有效的图像检索算法.首先采用HS （Hierarchical Saliency,分层显著性）检测算法分析用户的兴趣目标并应用SC （Saliency-based Image Cut,基于显著性的图像分割）算法将其分割,然后针对兴趣目标提取HSV （Hue、Saturation、Value,色调、饱和度、明度）颜色特征、SIFT （Scale Invariant Feature Transform,尺度不变特征变换）局部特征和CNN （Convolutional Neural Network,卷积神经网络）语义特征,最后计算其与数据库图像的相似度并根据相似度排序返回检索结果.仿真实验结果表明,本文算法在解决"这是什么东西"这类图像检索任务时明显优于现有的图像检索算法.     

基于内容的图像检索技术研究

在对海量的图像数据进行检索时,传统的基于数值/字符的信息检索技术并不能满足要求.因此,基于内容的图像检索技术(CBIR:Content-Based Image Retrieval)的研究应运而生,并引起了广泛关注.本文主要讨论CBIR研究中的一些关键问题:图像的内容特征及其提取、特征之间的相似度计算、查询条件的表达、检索性能的评价、压缩域的图像检索技术等等,并指出了一些可值得深入研究的方向.     

基于多示例学习的图像检索方法

多示例学习对处理各类歧义问题有较好的效果,将它应用于周像检索问题,提出了一种新的基于多示例学习的图像检索方法。首先提取每幅图像的局部区域特征,通过对这些特征聚类求得一组基向量,并利用它们对每个局部特征向量进行编码,接着使用均值漂移聚类算法对图像进行分割,根据局部特征点位置所对应的分割块划分特征编码到相应的子集,最后将每组编码子集聚合成一个向量,这样每幅图像对应一个多示例包。根据用户选择的图像生成正包和反包,采用多示例学习算法进行学习,取得了较为满意的结果。     

基于综合特征和SVM相关反馈的图像检索

提出综合纹理、颜色和形状特征的图像检索方法。首先采用Gabor小波计算ROIs(Regions of Interest)的位置和数目;然后在ROIs中,使用Gabor小波提取纹理特征,采用YUV空间直方图和颜色矩表示颜色特征,使用Zernike矩提取形状特征。为了提高图像检索的准确度,最后采用基于支持向量机(SVM)的相关反馈算法。实验结果表明,提出的方法具有较好的检索性能。     

Query Expansion by Text and Image Features in Image Retrieval

We present a two-pass image retrieval system in which retrieval techniques for text and image documents are combined in a novel approach. In the first pass, the text-based initial query is matched against the text captions of the images in the database to obtain the initial retrieved set. In the second pass, text and image features obtained from this initial retrieved set are used to expand the initial query. Additional images from the database are then retrieved based on the expanded query. The image features that we have used are color histograms, DC coefficients from the discrete cosine transform, and two texture features: multiresolution simultaneous autoregressive model and local binary pattern. These are low-level statistical image features that can be easily computed. Extensive experiments have been performed on 1019 color pictures of mixed variety with captions, relevance judgments and queries supplied by a national archives agency. Objective precision-recall results have been obtained with various combinations of text and image features. The results show that the image features do not perform well when used on their own. However, when image features are used in query expansion, they increase the average precision more significantly than text annotations. Moreover, these findings are valid at all precision levels and are not sensitive to the image feature acquisition parameters.     

Fast wavelet-based image characterization for highly adaptive image retrieval

Adaptive wavelet-based image characterizations have been proposed in previous works for content-based image retrieval (CBIR) applications. In these applications, the same wavelet basis was used to characterize each query image: This wavelet basis was tuned to maximize the retrieval performance in a training data set. We take it one step further in this paper: A different wavelet basis is used to characterize each query image. A regression function, which is tuned to maximize the retrieval performance in the training data set, is used to estimate the best wavelet filter, i.e., in terms of expected retrieval performance, for each query image. A simple image characterization, which is based on the standardized moments of the wavelet coefficient distributions, is presented. An algorithm is proposed to compute this image characterization almost instantly for every possible separable or nonseparable wavelet filter. Therefore, using a different wavelet basis for each query image does not considerably increase computation times. On the other hand, significant retrieval performance increases were obtained in a medical image data set, a texture data set, a face recognition data set, and an object picture data set. This additional flexibility in wavelet adaptation paves the way to relevance feedback on image characterization itself and not simply on the way image characterizations are combined.     

Content-based image retrieval using local visual attention feature

Content-based image retrieval (CBIR) has been an active research topic in the last decade. As one of the promising approaches, salient point based image retrieval has attracted many researchers. However, the related work is usually very time consuming, and some salient points always may not represent the most interesting subset of points for image indexing. Based on fast and performant salient point detector, and the salient point expansion, a novel content-based image retrieval using local visual attention feature is proposed in this paper. Firstly, the salient image points are extracted by using the fast and performant SURF (Speeded-Up Robust Features) detector. Then, the visually significant image points around salient points can be obtained according to the salient point expansion. Finally, the local visual attention feature of visually significant image points, including the weighted color histogram and spatial distribution entropy, are extracted, and the similarity between color images is computed by using the local visual attention feature. Experimental results, including comparisons with the state-of-the-art retrieval systems, demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposal.     

PicToSeek: combining color and shape invariant features for imageretrieval

We aim at combining color and shape invariants for indexing and retrieving images. To this end, color models are proposed independent of the object geometry, object pose, and illumination. From these color models, color invariant edges are derived from which shape invariant features are computed. Computational methods are described to combine the color and shape invariants into a unified high-dimensional invariant feature set for discriminatory object retrieval. Experiments have been conducted on a database consisting of 500 images taken from multicolored man-made objects in real world scenes. From the theoretical and experimental results it is concluded that object retrieval based on composite color and shape invariant features provides excellent retrieval accuracy. Object retrieval based on color invariants provides very high retrieval accuracy whereas object retrieval based entirely on shape invariants yields poor discriminative power. Furthermore, the image retrieval scheme is highly robust to partial occlusion, object clutter and a change in the object's pose. Finally, the image retrieval scheme is integrated into the PicToSeek system on-line at http://www.wins.uva.nl/research/isis/PicToSeek/ for searching images on the World Wide Web.     

基于图像内容的主动网格节点提取方法

基于内容的图像分割和建立运动目标模型都需要选择图像的特征点,均匀采样会丢失过多的细节特征。图像受噪声和光照的影响,通常特征点不是很稳健,普通的边界检测算子和角点检测算子对噪声敏感,提出采用2DGabor小波变换计算目标的局部特征能量,利用能量系数进行特征点检测,能很好克服噪声的影响;然后采用基于能量系数加权的动态聚类,提取局部特征点,避免了聚类中心偏离实际特征部位。通过特征点提取,建立一种基于图像特征的主动网格。     

Relevance feedback in content-based image retrieval: Bayesian framework, feature subspaces, and progressive learning

Research has been devoted in the past few years to relevance feedback as an effective solution to improve performance of content-based image retrieval (CBIR). In this paper, we propose a new feedback approach with progressive learning capability combined with a novel method for the feature subspace extraction. The proposed approach is based on a Bayesian classifier and treats positive and negative feedback examples with different strategies. Positive examples are used to estimate a Gaussian distribution that represents the desired images for a given query; while the negative examples are used to modify the ranking of the retrieved candidates. In addition, feature subspace is extracted and updated during the feedback process using a principal component analysis (PCA) technique and based on user's feedback. That is, in addition to reducing the dimensionality of feature spaces, a proper subspace for each type of features is obtained in the feedback process to further improve the retrieval accuracy. Experiments demonstrate that the proposed method increases the retrieval speed, reduces the required memory and improves the retrieval accuracy significantly.