Garment Image Retrieval on the Web with Ubiquitous Camera-Phone

Content-based image retrieval (CBIR) on the Web is an active research topic in recent years. However, a common problem for the content-based search is the difficulty for getting a query image, which dramatically limits the popularity of their application. The ubiquity of camera phones has opened up a new avenue for image-based mobile search and it also gives new challenges. In this paper, a domain-specific CBIR system on the Web with mobile camera-phone is proposed, which further extends our previous work on VAST system and focuses on the specific garment images. It makes full use of the camera-phone´s ability that captures and views images anywhere. The key problems related to the wireless network and media characteristics, system usability and users expectations are depicted. The system architecture and flowchart are described also. Based on these, a prototype is implemented.