General Database Infrastructure for Image Retrieval

Abstract

In this article, a general database infrastructure implemented in an Object-Relational Database Management System for image retrieval is proposed and describe. Semantic and content based image queries can be performed with this application. The infrastructure is structured into three levels: content-based, semantic data and an interface integrating them. It is complemented with a set of database User Defined Types (UDT) composed of attributes and operations. Set operations: union, intersection and difference are implemented for recovering images based on its attributes. In order to prove the capabilities of this approach a case study about vehicles is implemented. The results obtained by performing about 240 queries with a 10000 database image show an important improvement in image similarity search. The architecture can be easily adapted for specific field applications.