Indexing, retrieval and browsing of wavelet compressed imagery data

The wavelet packet transform and the successive approximation quantization techniques, which have been adopted in modern wavelet coding, are exploited for content-based image retrieval in this research. By adopting this approach, images can be compressed and indexed simultaneously, and the complexity of database management can be significantly reduced. The proposed new feature for image indexing is the number of significant wavelet coefficients in each wavelet packet subband. This feature does not only serve as a good representation of image content but also allows a hierarchical retrieval and browsing of images and facilitates the progressive transmission of retrieved images. Extensive experimental results are provided to demonstrate the retrieval efficiency of the proposed new method.