An efficient signature representation for retrieval of spatially similar images

Multimedia applications involving image retrieval demand fast and efficient response. Efficiency of search and retrieval of information in a database system is index dependent. Generally, a two-level indexing scheme in an image database can help to reduce the search space against a given query image. In such type of indexing scheme, the first level is required to significantly reduce the search space for second stage of comparisons and must be computationally efficient. It is also required to guarantee that no false negatives may result. The second level of indexing involves more detailed analysis and comparison of potentially relevant images. In this paper, we present an efficient signature representation scheme for first level of a two-level image indexing scheme that is based on hierarchical decomposition of image space into spatial arrangement of image features. Experimental results demonstrate that our signature representation scheme results in fewer number of matching signatures in the first level and significantly improves the overall computational time. As this scheme relies on corner points as the salient feature points in an image to describe its contents, we also compare results using several different contemporary corner detection methods. Further, we formally prove that the proposed signature representation scheme not only results in fewer number of signatures but also does not result in any false negative.