Automatic building of a visual interface for content-based multiresolutionretrieval of paleontology images

In this article we present research work in the field of content-based imag e retrieval in large databases applied to the paleontology image database o f the Universite de Bourgogne, Dijon, France, called "TRANS'TYFIPAL." Our i ndexing method is based on multiresolution decomposition of database images using wavelets. For each family of paleontology images we try to find a mo del image that represents it. The K-means automatic classification algorith m divides the space of parameters into several clusters. A model image for each cluster is computed from the wavelet transform of each image of the cl uster. Then a search tree is built to offer users a graphic interface for r etrieving images. So users have to navigate through this tree of model imag es to find an image similar to that they are requesting. Our contribution i n the field is the building of the model and of the search tree to make use r access easier and faster. At the end of this article we give experimental results and a description of future work that will be done to enhance our indexing and retrieval method. (C) 2001 SPIE and IS&T.