3D viewpoint-based photo search and information browsing

We propose a new photo search method that uses three-dimensional (3D) viewpoints as queries. 3D viewpoint-based image retrieval is especially useful for searching collections of archaeological photographs,which contain many different images of the same object. Our method is designed to enable users to retrieve images that contain the same object but show a different view, and to browse groups of images taken from a similar viewpoint. We also propose using 3D scenes to query by example, which means that users do not have the problem of trying to formulate appropriate queries. This combination gives users an easy way of accessing not only photographs but also archived information.