Reference database of images and video sequences in gastrointestinal endoscopy: a medical approach

Image and video sequences take an important place in the medical diagnosis process. In digestive investigation units, endoscopical examinations lead to an important volume of images and video data, which are usually lost as soon as they are produced. The aim of this project is to build a reference data bank of images and video sequences, to organize the content indexing system for implementing and retrieval of specific images, in the field of computer-assisted diagnosis of digestive endoscopical lesions. This paper reports the hypothesis that sustains the project. Indexing of endoscopical images by content refers to 2 different approaches. The operator describes the image in an implicit and symbolic way and joins other levels of information such as consistency of lesion or medical context; the computer scientist uses more elementary and quantitative characteristics. Bringing together the medical symbolic space and the observation space leads to a consistent base of knowledge. The endoscopical image is described as a scene of simple or complex objects each of them characterized by elementary attributes, and these descriptors are listed