A Unified Approach to Iconic Indexing, Retrieval, and Maintenance of Spatial Relationships in Image Databases

In this paper we propose a unified iconic indexing, the generalized combined 2D string representation, for images in image databases. Each 2D image is modelled as a generalized extended pseudo-symbolic picture, which has the GEP-2D string representation. We present an efficient algorithm to generate the GEP-2D string representation for each 2D image. We also show how to maintain the complete information about the absolute spatial relationships in the image. Our proposed iconic indexing combines both the GEP-2D string representation and the usual 2D string representation to capture absolute and relative spatial relationships in the image. The result is better representation of spatial relationships in image databases. These results extend our earlier work on a large class of 2D scenes, the extended pseudo-symbolic pictures. Picture retrieval by generalized combined 2D strings is discussed. Our approach can also be easily formulated for 3D images.