An image retrieval algorithm using independent edge self-reinforcement and integrated salient edge matching

Digital image retrieval systems allow sophisticated querying and searching by image contents. Since 1990's, Content-Based Image Retrieval (CBIR) has attracted great research attention. In this paper, we propose a new approach for shape-based image retrieval. We perform an independent edge self-reinforcement algorithm on the edge map to yield the salient edges. The content of a salient edge is characterized by its low-level features, including length, rotation angle histogram and corner frequency. Then, the image similarity measure are based on the EMD (Earth Mover's Distance), named as integrated salient edge matching in this article. Preliminary experimental results on a database containing 7000 images demonstrate that the proposed method is promising.