An image database system facilitating icon-driven spatial information definition and retrieval

As a step towards the development of advanced image database systems with the objective of reducing the semantic gap between the user´s view and the system´s view, an integrated image database system which facilitates icon-driven spatial information definition and retrieval is proposed. Spatial (visual) characteristics of entities in an image can be defined and retrieved in a uniform way by drawing sketches of the entities and arranging them spatially on a two-dimensional screen. The approach taken is that of representing the requested characteristics as spatial knowledge visually in ordinary inference rules. Man-machine interaction facilities and a scheme of spatial characteristics extraction are extensively discussed as well