A Kernel-based Approach for Content-based Image Retrieval

Content-based image retrieval (CBIR) is a popular approach to retrieve images based on a query. In CBIR, retrieval is executed based on the properties of image contents (e.g. gradient, shape, color, texture) which are generally encoded into image descriptors. Among the various image descriptors, histogram-based descriptors are very popular. However, they suffer from the limitation of coarse quantization. In contrast, the use of kernel descriptors (KDES) is proven to be more effective than histogram-based descriptors in other applications, e.g. image classification. This is because, in the KDES framework, instead of the quantization of pixel attributes, each pixel equally takes part in the similarity measurement between two images. In this paper, we propose an approach for how the conventional KDES and its improved version can be used for CBIR. In addition, we have provided a detailed insight into the effectiveness of improved kernel descriptors. Finally, our experiment results will show that kernel descriptors are significantly more effective than histogram-based descriptors in CBIR.