Color image retrieval using a fractal signature extraction technique

Content-based image retrieval systems have become a reliable tool for many image database applications. There are several advantages of the image retrieval techniques compared to other simple retrieval approaches such as text-based retrieval techniques. This paper proposes a new image retrieval technique that can be used for retrieving color images. The proposed technique is based on a fractal scanning procedure, which extracts 1-D signatures for each one of the image color components. These signatures contain not only color information, but also shape and textural image information. Using Fourier descriptors and discrete transform, powerful features are extracted from the signatures that permit the efficient retrieval of color images. The system is suitable for retrieving query images even in distortion cases such as deformations, noise, color, cosine reduction and smoothing. r 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.