Image retrieval system using an iconic thesaurus

The aim of the present paper is to propose an image retrieval system with an iconic thesaurus, which means a structured dictionary of iconic images. The concept of iconic images that are also called icons are introduced and the way in which they are used in image retrieval systems is described. Images are indexed by icons, and the thesaurus of icons has hierarchical and circular structures rather than a network structure, from which navigation to images are possible. Moreover queries by Boolean as well as topological combinations of icons for retrieval are used. It should also be noted that an arbitrary image can be turned into an icon which is put into the structured dictionary.