On the use of hierarchical color moments for image indexing and retrieval

Given a database of images and their associated data, we want to search the database for a known image so as to retrieve the data associated with that image. The paper proposes a new image-based indexing scheme which enables the retrieval of data associated with an image. The approach proposed is based on using a hierarchy of color moments and offers a compromise between methods based on multiple color moments of segmented regions and those based on global color moments. The method retains positional information better than the above schemes and naturally leads to a multi-level comparison strategy where mismatches are quickly discarded at higher levels. Contrary to other schemes where three moments were used, the proposed methods provide better storage efficiency and less computational efforts as it only employs the first two moments. Simulation results show the efficiency and accuracy of the proposed scheme.