Supporting efficient multimedia database exploration

Due to the fuzziness of query specification and media matching, multimedia retrieval is conducted by way of exploration. It is essential to provide fe edback so that users can visualize query reformulation alternatives and dat abase content distribution. Since media matching is an expensive task, anot her issue is how to efficiently support exploration so that the system is n ot overloaded by perpetual query reformulation. In this paper, we present a uniform framework to represent statistical information of both semantics a nd visual metadata for images in the databases. We propose the concept of q uery verification which evaluates queries using statistics, and provides us ers with feedback, including the strictness and reformulation alternatives of each query condition as well as estimated numbers of matches. With query verification, the system increases the efficiency of the multimedia databa se exploration for both users and the system. Such statistical information is also utilized to support progressive query processing and query relaxati on.