Object image retrieval by shape content in complex scenes using geometric constraints

Abstract

This paper presents an image retrieval system based on 2D shape information. Query shape objects and database images are represented by polygonal approximations of their contours. Afterwards they are encoded, using geometric features, in terms of predefined structures. Shapes are then located in database images by a voting procedure on the spatial domain. Then an alignment matching provides a probability value to rank de database image in the retrieval result. The method allows to detect a query object in database images even when they contain complex scenes. Also the shape matching tolerates partial occlusions and affine transformations as translation, rotation or scaling. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2005.