Sketch-based Retrieval of Drawings Using Topological Proximity

Currently, there are large collections of drawings from which users can select the desired ones to insert in their documents. However, to locate a particular drawing among thousands is not easy. In our prior work we proposed an approach to index and retrieve vector drawings by content, using topological and geometric information automatically extracted from figures. In this paper, we present a new approach to enrich the topological information by integrating spatial proximity in the topology graph, through the use of weights in adjacency links. Additionally, we developed a web search engine for clip art drawings, where we included the new technique. Experimental evaluation reveal that the use of topological proximity results in better retrieval results than topology alone.