Self-Organizing Maps for Content-Based Image Database Retrieval

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses about a novel system of retrieving images, which has been developed similar to a given set of reference images in large image databases, based on tree structured self-organizing maps (TS-SOMs). The image retrieval system is called PicSOM. It has been designed with the purpose of providing a framework for generic research on algorithms and methods for content-based image retrieval. A new technique introduced in this chapter facilitates automatic combination of responses from multiple TS-SOMs and their hierarchical levels. Each TS-SOM is tuned with a different image feature representation like color, texture, or shape. This mechanism adapts to the user's preferences in selecting which images resemble each other, in the particular sense the user is interested in. The image queries are performed through the World Wide Web (WWW) and the queries are iteratively refined as the system exposes more images to the user.