Content-based image retrieval using block-constrained fractal coding and nona-tree decomposition

Fractal coding has been proved useful for image compression. In fractal coding, an image is represented by a number of self-transformations (fractal code) by which an approximation of the original image can be reconstructed. The authors present a block-constrained fractal coding scheme and a nona-tree decomposition based matching strategy for content-based image retrieval. In the coding scheme, an image is partitioned into non-overlapped blocks with a size close to that of a query iconic image. The fractal code is generated for each block independently. In the similarity measure of the fractal code, an improved nona-tree decomposition scheme is adopted to avoid matching the fractal code globally in order to reduce computational complexity. The experimental results show that the authors´ coding scheme and matching strategy are useful for image retrieval, and compare favourably with two other methods tested in terms of storage usage and computing time