Fast Query Point Movement Techniques for Large CBIR Systems

Target search in content-based image retrieval (CBIR) systems refers to finding a specific (target) image such as a particular registered logo or a specific historical photograph. Existing techniques, designed around query refinement based on relevance feedback, suffer from slow convergence, and do not guarantee to find intended targets. To address these limitations, we propose several efficient query point movement methods. We prove that our approach is able to reach any given target image with fewer iterations in the worst and average cases. We propose a new index structure and query processing technique to improve retrieval effectiveness and efficiency. We also consider strategies to minimize the effects of users' inaccurate relevance feedback. Extensive experiments in simulated and realistic environments show that our approach significantly reduces the number of required iterations and improves overall retrieval performance. The experimental results also confirm that our approach can always retrieve intended targets even with poor selection of initial query points.