Symbolic picture retrieval by relative-metric spatial relations

Symbolic pictures can be used for iconic indexing, spatial reasoning, and s imilarity retrieval in the design of intelligent image database systems. [S . K. Chang, C. W. Yan, Donald C. Dimitroff, and Timothy Arndt, IEEE Trans. Software Engineering 1988, 14, 681-688; S.-K. Chang, Principles of Pictoria l Information Systems Design, Prentice-Hall, New York, 1989.] However, prev ious approaches to designing such systems usually ignore relative-metric in formation on symbolic pictures and cause several deficiencies in indexing, spatial reasoning, and retrieval. In our approach, we extract relative-metr ic information from symbolic pictures and use such information to help esta blish indexes based on an improvement from a minimal perfect hashing scheme . As a result, more accurate picture retrieval can be achieved through our indexing mechanism. Capabilities in spatial reasoning and query representat ion/processing are also improved. By utilizing relative-metric spatial rela tions, an image database system becomes more flexible and intelligent. (C) 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.