Drawsearch: a tool for interactive content-based image retrieval over the Net

Content Based image retrieval has recently become one of the most active research areas, due to the massive increase in the amount and complexity of digitized data being stored, transmitted and accessed. We present here a prototype implementation of DRAWSEARCH, an image retrieval by content system that uses color and shape (and texture in the near future) features to index and retrieve images. The system, currently being tested and improved, is designed to increase interactivity with users posing queries over the Internet and avails of a Java client for query by sketch. It also implements relevance feedback to allow users dynamically refine queries. Experiments show that the proposed approach can greatly reduce the user's effort to compose a query while capturing his/her information need with greater precision.