EFFICIENT ACCESS METHODS FOR IMAGE DATABASES

In the previous approaches to retrieve a symbolic picture from an imag e database which contains multiple symbolic pictures, only 9 spatial r elationships that are represented in 2D strings or 9DLT matrices were considered. In this paper, we propose two efficient access methods for image databases, which can handle 169 spatial relationships. In the f irst proposed method, each record signature is represented by 26 bits and 26-bit strings of size N, where N > 0. In the second proposed meth od, each record signature is represented by 26 bits and 26 products of prime numbers. Given the same image databases, the same query picture and the same hash functions, the ratio of the false match in our stra tegy can be smaller than that of the previous approaches, where a fals e match is that a record signature matches a query signature but the c orresponding record does not satisfy the query. (C) 1997 Elsevier Scie nce B.V.