Edge-based Image Retrieval Using a Rough Sketch

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a new feature for image retrieval using a rough sketch. The proposed feature is based on edge shape and is used to represent the relative position of the edge pixels. This edge-based feature is shift-, scale and rotation-invariant. In this method, the number of edge pixels in each region of the pixel of interest is divided radially into eight directions and is then counted and thresholded to represent the pixel by an 8-bit binary pattern. The resulting histogram, containing 256 bins corresponding to 8-bit words in counter-clockwise order, is regarded as an image feature. To verify the effectiveness of this method, we applied the method to two image databases : 1, 650 images from musical instruments and 3, 200 images from the COREL photo gallery. The results showed that the proposed feature is effective for image retrieval.