A formal framework for image indexing with triples: Toward a concept-basedimage retrieval

This paper provides a formal specification for concept-based image retrieva l using triples. To effectively manage a vast amount of images, we may need an image retrieval system capable of indexing and searching images based o n the characteristics of their content. However, such a content-based image retrieval technique alone may not satisfy user queries if retrieved images turn out to be relevant only when they are conceptually related with the q ueries. In this paper, we develop an image retrieval mechanism to extract s emantics of images based on triples. The semantics can be captured by deriv ing concepts from its constituent objects and spatial relationships between them. The concepts are basically composite objects formed from the aggrega tion of the constituents. In our mechanism, all the spatial relationships b etween objects including the concepts are uniformly represented by triples, which are used for indexing images as well as capturing their semantics. W e also develop a query evaluation for supporting the concept-based image re trieval. (C) 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.