Searching for image information content, its discovery, extraction, and representation

Image information content is known to be a complicated and a controversial problem. We posit a new image information content definition. Following the theory of Solomonoff-KolmogorovChaitin’s complexity, we define image information content as a set of descriptions of image data structures. Three levels of such description can be generally distinguished: (1) the global level, where the coarse structure of the entire scene is initially outlined; (2) the intermediate level, where structures of separate, nonoverlapping image regions usually associated with individual scene objects are delineated; and (3) the low-level description, where local image structures observed in a limited and restricted field of view are resolved. A technique for creating such image information content descriptors is developed. Its algorithm is presented and elucidated with some examples, which demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach. © 2005 SPIE and IS&T. [DOI: 10.1117/1.1867476]