Query-by-Gesture: An Alternative Content-Based Image Retrieval Query Scheme

Abstract

Current research on content-based image retrieval (CBIR) is centered on designing efficient query schemes in order to provide a user with effective mechanisms for image database search. Among representative CBIR query schemes, query-by-sketch has been one of the attractive query tools that are highly adaptive to user's subjectivity. However, query-by-sketch has a few limitations. That is, most sketch tools demand expertise in image processing or computer vision of the user to provide good enough sketches that can be used as query. Furthermore, sketching the exact shape of an object using a mouse can be a burden on the user. To overcome some of the limitations associated with query-by-sketch, we propose a new query method for CBIR, query-by-gesture, that does not require sketches, thereby minimizing user interaction. In our system, the user does not need to use a mouse to make a sketch. Instead, the user draws the shape of the object that heshe intends to search in front of a camera by hand. In addition, our query-by-gesture technique uses relevance feedback to interactively improve retrieval performance and allow progressive refinement of query results according to the user's specification. The efficacy of our proposed method is validated using images from the Corel-Photo CD.