e-Catalogue Image Retrieval Using Vectorial Combination of Color Edge

The edge descriptor proposed by MPEG-7 standard is a representative approach for the contents-based image retrieval using the edge information. In the edge descriptor, the edge information is the edge histogram derived from a gray-level value image. This paper proposes a new method which extracts color edge information from color images and a new approach for the contents-based image retrieval based on the color edge histogram. The poposed method and technique are applied to image retrieval of the e-catalogue. For the evaluation, the results of image retrieval using the proposed approach are compared with those of image retrieval using the edge descriptor by MPEG-7 and the statistics shows the efficiency of the proposed method. The proposed color edge model is made by combining the R,G,B channel components vectorially and by characterizing the vector norm of the edge map. The color edge histogram using the direction of the color edge model is subsequently used for the contents-based image retrieval.