Image Indexing by Contour Analysis: A Comparison

This paper describes three systems for image indexing and retrieval based on contour analysis. The systems compared are F-Index for Contours (FIC), Hierarchical Entropy-based Representation (HER) and Sketch-based query by Dialogue (SQD). The first system has been modified for contour-matching, since it was originally designed for a different purpose. The choice of these specifical systems has been made because of their similar conception, aim and computational complexity. An experimental and conceptual comparison has been carried out in order to assess retrieval precision, efficiency and usability. The results show that FIC and HER have similar performance in the high end of the spectrum, while SQD has less precise retrieval and less efficient search.