Classification of photo and sketch images using convolutional neural networks

Abstract

Content-Based Image Retrieval (CBIR) system enables us to access images using only images as queries, instead of keywords. Photorealistic images, and hand-drawn sketch image can be used as a queries as well. Recently, convolutional neural networks (CNNs) are used to discriminate images including sketches. However, the tasks are limited to classifying only one type of images, either photo or sketch images, due to the lack of a large dataset of sketch images and the large difference of their visual characteristics. In this paper, we introduce a simple way to prepare training datasets, which can enable the CNN model to classify both types of images by color transforming photo and illustration images. Through the training experiment, we show that the proposed method contributes to the improvement of classification accuracy.