Spatial color image retrieval without segmentation using thumbnails and the Earth Mover's Distance

Thomas Hurtut, Haroldo Dalazoana, Yann Gousseau, Francis Schmitt;
Ecole Nationale Superieure des Telecommunications, TSI, Paris, France
Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal, LIV4D, Montreal, Canada

Abstract:

We introduce a spatial color image retrieval method which does not include any segmentation step. This method relies on small image thumbnails and the Earth Mover's Distance (EMD). We then derive an unsupervised matching criterion using an a contrario approach. Experiments are performed on a database of illuminated manuscripts.

Keywords:

color, spatial, indexation, content-based image retrieval