Content-Based Image Retrieval using Hard Voting Ensemble Method of Inception, Xception, and Mobilenet Architectures

Abstract

Advancements in internet accessibility and the affordability of digital picture sensors have led to the proliferation of extensive image databases utilized across a multitude of applications. Addressing the semantic gap between low-level attributes and human visual perception has become pivotal in refining Content Based Image Retrieval (CBIR) methodologies, especially within this context. As this field is intensely researched, numerous efficient algorithms for CBIR systems have surfaced, precipitating significant progress in the artificial intelligence field. In this study, we propose employing a hard voting ensemble approach on features derived from three robust deep learning architectures: Inception, Exception, and Mobilenet. This is aimed at bridging the divide between low-level image features and human visual perception. The Euclidean method is adopted to determine the similarity metric between the query image and the features database. The outcome was a noticeable improvement in image retrieval accuracy. We applied our approach to a practical dataset named CBIR 50, which encompasses categories such as mobile phones, cars, cameras, and cats. The effectiveness of our method was thereby validated. Our approach outshone existing CBIR algorithms with superior accuracy (ACC), precision (PREC), recall (REC), and F1-score (F1-S), proving to be a noteworthy addition to the field of CBIR. Our proposed methodology could be potentially extended to various other sectors, including medical imaging and surveillance systems, where image retrieval accuracy is of paramount importance.