Content-based retrieval using heuristic search

Abstract

The fast growth of multimedia information in image and video databases has triggered research on efficient retrieval methods. This paper deals with structural queries, a type of content-based retrieval where similarity is not defined on visual properties such as color and texture, but on object relations in space. We propose the application of heuristic algorithms which provide good, but not necessarily optimal, solutions in a pre-determined time period, and compare our approach with systematic search methods which are guaranteed to find optimal solutions but require exponential time in the worst case. The quality of the output is calculated using a relation framework which is an extension of Allen's relations. With this framework our methods can be applied in multiple resolutions and dimensions, thus covering a wide range of applications in spatial, multimedia and video systems.