An image retrieval system returns a set of images from a collection of images in the database to

meet users demand with similarity evaluations such as image content similarity, edge pattern
similarity, color similarity, etc. An image retrieval system offers an efficient way to access,
browse, and retrieve a set of similar images in the real-time applications. Several approaches
have been developed to capture the information of image contents by directly computing the
image features from an image as reported in [15-20].
The feature extraction in CBIR is a prominent step whose effectiveness depends upon the
method adopted for extracting features from given images. The CBIR utilizes visual contents of
an image such as color, texture, shape, faces, spatial layout, etc., to represent and index the image
database. These features can be further classified as general features such as color, texture, and
shape, and domain-specific features such as human faces, fingerprints, etc. The difficulty to find
a single best representation of an image for all perceptual subjectivity is due to the fact that the
user may take photographs in different conditions such as view angle, illumination changes, etc.
A comprehensive and extensive literature survey on CBIR is presented in [1][4].

In Ref. [1], Eakins mentioned three levels of queries in CBIR.

Level 1: Retrieval by primitive features such as color, texture, shape or the spatial location of
image elements. Typical query is query by example, find pictures like this.
Level 2: Retrieval of objects of given type identified by derived features, with some degree of
logical inference. For example, find a picture of a flower.
Level 3: Retrieval by abstract attributes, involving a significant amount of high-level reasoning
about the purpose of the objects or scenes depicted. This includes retrieval of named events, of

pictures with emotional or religious significance, etc. Query example, find pictures of a joyful
crowd.
Users in Level 1 retrieval are usually required to submit an example image or sketch as query.
But what if the user does not have an example image at hand? Semantic image retrieval is more
convenient for users as it supports query by keywords or by texture. Retrieval at Level 3 is
difficult and less common. Possible Level 3 retrieval can be found in domain specific areas such
as art museums or newspaper library. Current systems mostly perform retrieval at Level 2. There
are three fundamental components in these systems: (1) low-level image feature extraction, (2)
similarity measure, (3) semantic gap reduction.