A Universal Model for Content-Based Image Retrieval

In this paper a novel approach for generalized image retrieval based on semantic contents is presented. A combination of three feature extraction methods namely color, texture, and edge histogram descriptor. There is a provision to add new features in future for better retrieval efficiency. Any combination of these methods, which is more appropriate for the application, can be used for retrieval. This is provided through User Interface (UI) in the form of relevance feedback. The image properties analyzed in this work are by using computer vision and image processing algorithms. For color the histogram of images are computed, for texture cooccurrence matrix based entropy, energy, etc, are calculated and for edge density it is Edge Histogram Descriptor (EHD) that is found. For retrieval of images, a novel idea is developed based on greedy strategy to reduce the computational complexity. The entire system was developed using AForge.Imaging (an open source product), MATLAB .NET Builder, C#, and Oracle 10g. The system was tested with Coral Image database containing 1000 natural images and achieved better results.

Photo Mosaic Smartphone Application in Client-Server Based Large-Scale Image Databases

In this paper we present a photo mosaic smartphone application in client-server based large-scale image databases. Photo mosaic is not a new concept, but there are very few smartphone applications especially for a huge number of images in the client-server environment. To support large-scale image databases, we first propose an overall framework working as a client-server model. We then present a concept of image-PAA features to efficiently handle a huge number of images and discuss its lower bounding property. We also present a best-match algorithm that exploits the lower bounding property of image-PAA. We finally implement an efficient Android-based application and demonstrate its feasibility.

A New Color Image Database for Benchmarking of Automatic Face Detection and Human Skin Segmentation Techniques

This paper presents a new color face image database for benchmarking of automatic face detection algorithms and human skin segmentation techniques. It is named the VT-AAST image database, and is divided into four parts. Part one is a set of 286 color photographs that include a total of 1027 faces in the original format given by our digital cameras, offering a wide range of difference in orientation, pose, environment, illumination, facial expression and race. Part two contains the same set in a different file format. The third part is a set of corresponding image files that contain human colored skin regions resulting from a manual segmentation procedure. The fourth part of the database has the same regions converted into grayscale. The database is available on-line for noncommercial use. In this paper, descriptions of the database development, organization, format as well as information needed for benchmarking of algorithms are depicted in detail.

Hand Written Digit Recognition by Multiple Classifier Fusion based on Decision Templates Approach

Classifier fusion may generate more accurate classification than each of the basic classifiers. Fusion is often based on fixed combination rules like the product, average etc. This paper presents decision templates as classifier fusion method for the recognition of the handwritten English and Farsi numerals (1-9). The process involves extracting a feature vector on well-known image databases. The extracted feature vector is fed to multiple classifier fusion. A set of experiments were conducted to compare decision templates (DTs) with some combination rules. Results from decision templates conclude 97.99% and 97.28% for Farsi and English handwritten digits.

Low Resolution Face Recognition Using Mixture of Experts

Human activity is a major concern in a wide variety of applications, such as video surveillance, human computer interface and face image database management. Detecting and recognizing faces is a crucial step in these applications. Furthermore, major advancements and initiatives in security applications in the past years have propelled face recognition technology into the spotlight. The performance of existing face recognition systems declines significantly if the resolution of the face image falls below a certain level. This is especially critical in surveillance imagery where often, due to many reasons, only low-resolution video of faces is available. If these low-resolution images are passed to a face recognition system, the performance is usually unacceptable. Hence, resolution plays a key role in face recognition systems. In this paper we introduce a new low resolution face recognition system based on mixture of expert neural networks. In order to produce the low resolution input images we down-sampled the 48 × 48 ORL images to 12 × 12 ones using the nearest neighbor interpolation method and after that applying the bicubic interpolation method yields enhanced images which is given to the Principal Component Analysis feature extractor system. Comparison with some of the most related methods indicates that the proposed novel model yields excellent recognition rate in low resolution face recognition that is the recognition rate of 100% for the training set and 96.5% for the test set.

Image Similarity: A Genetic Algorithm Based Approach

The paper proposes an approach using genetic algorithm for computing the region based image similarity. The image is denoted using a set of segmented regions reflecting color and texture properties of an image. An image is associated with a family of image features corresponding to the regions. The resemblance of two images is then defined as the overall similarity between two families of image features, and quantified by a similarity measure, which integrates properties of all the regions in the images. A genetic algorithm is applied to decide the most plausible matching. The performance of the proposed method is illustrated using examples from an image database of general-purpose images, and is shown to produce good results.

Reducing the False Rejection Rate of Iris Recognition Using Textural and Topological Features

This paper presents a novel iris recognition system using 1D log polar Gabor wavelet and Euler numbers. 1D log polar Gabor wavelet is used to extract the textural features, and Euler numbers are used to extract topological features of the iris. The proposed decision strategy uses these features to authenticate an individual-s identity while maintaining a low false rejection rate. The algorithm was tested on CASIA iris image database and found to perform better than existing approaches with an overall accuracy of 99.93%.

Segmentation of Images through Clustering to Extract Color Features: An Application forImage Retrieval

This paper deals with the application for contentbased image retrieval to extract color feature from natural images stored in the image database by segmenting the image through clustering. We employ a class of nonparametric techniques in which the data points are regarded as samples from an unknown probability density. Explicit computation of the density is avoided by using the mean shift procedure, a robust clustering technique, which does not require prior knowledge of the number of clusters, and does not constrain the shape of the clusters. A non-parametric technique for the recovery of significant image features is presented and segmentation module is developed using the mean shift algorithm to segment each image. In these algorithms, the only user set parameter is the resolution of the analysis and either gray level or color images are accepted as inputs. Extensive experimental results illustrate excellent performance.

Grouping and Indexing Color Features for Efficient Image Retrieval

Content-based Image Retrieval (CBIR) aims at searching image databases for specific images that are similar to a given query image based on matching of features derived from the image content. This paper focuses on a low-dimensional color based indexing technique for achieving efficient and effective retrieval performance. In our approach, the color features are extracted using the mean shift algorithm, a robust clustering technique. Then the cluster (region) mode is used as representative of the image in 3-D color space. The feature descriptor consists of the representative color of a region and is indexed using a spatial indexing method that uses *R -tree thus avoiding the high-dimensional indexing problems associated with the traditional color histogram. Alternatively, the images in the database are clustered based on region feature similarity using Euclidian distance. Only representative (centroids) features of these clusters are indexed using *R -tree thus improving the efficiency. For similarity retrieval, each representative color in the query image or region is used independently to find regions containing that color. The results of these methods are compared. A JAVA based query engine supporting query-by- example is built to retrieve images by color.

New Corneal Reflection Removal Method Used In Iris Recognition System

Images of human iris contain specular highlights due to the reflective properties of the cornea. This corneal reflection causes many errors not only in iris and pupil center estimation but also to locate iris and pupil boundaries especially for methods that use active contour. Each iris recognition system has four steps: Segmentation, Normalization, Encoding and Matching. In order to address the corneal reflection, a novel reflection removal method is proposed in this paper. Comparative experiments of two existing methods for reflection removal method are evaluated on CASIA iris image databases V3. The experimental results reveal that the proposed algorithm provides higher performance in reflection removal.

A Web Service Platform for Support Multiple Programming Language to Access Biomedical Image Databases

Images are important in disease research, education, and clinical medicine. This paper presents a Web Service Platform (WSP) for support multiple programming languages to access image from biomedical databases. The main function WSP is to allow web users access image from biomedical databases. The WSP will receive web user-s queries. After that, it will send to Querying Server (QS) and the QS will search and retrieve data from biomedical databases. Finally, the information will display to the web users. Simple application is developed and tested for experiment purpose. Result from experiment indicated WSP can be used in biomedical environment.