Web-based Beowulf-Class parallel computing on image database indexing and retrieval system

Content-based image retrieval (CBIR) techniques will be part of the next generation of search engines. However, even with a suitable retrieval method, real-time image retrieval from a large image database still requires extremely high computational power. In this paper, a Web-based image database indexing and retrieval system is described. It uses fast CBIR with Beowulf-Class parallel computing engine (Super Abacus) to efficiently and effectively shorten the retrieval time. Content-based image retrieval with several parallel algorithms for images which query different color spaces and the compressed-domain of the images are developed to achieve higher efficiency. Text-based query is also supported for images using a conventional annotation approach