Soft Computing Techniques in Content-Based Multimedia Information Retrieval

Abstract

Due to the diffusion of multimedia databases and new ways of communication, there is an urgent need for developing more effective search systems capable of retrieving information by specifying directly in user queries elements strictly related to the multimedia content. This is the main rationale behind the flourishing area of Content-Based Multimedia Information Retrieval (CB-MIR), that finds in Soft Computing (SC) techniques a valid tool to handle uncertainty and vagueness underlying the whole information retrieval process. The main reason for this success seems to be the synergy resulting from SC paradigms, such as fuzzy logic, neural networks, rough sets and genetic algorithms. Each of these computing paradigms provides complementary reasoning and searching methods that allow the use of domain knowledge and empirical data to solve complex problems. In this chapter, the authors emphasize the potential of SC techniques, also combined in hybrid schemes, for the development of effective CB-MIR systems. As an example, the authors describe a content-based image retrieval system that employs SC techniques in its working scheme.