Reverse storyboarding for video retrieval

We report early experiments towards a content based retrieval (CBVR) system that harnesses storyboards as an efficient and intuitive input mechanism for querying video databases. Storyboards encapsulate high level semantics describing both objects in the scene (spatially) and their movement (dynamics). Dynamics are depicted using a rich vocabulary of motion cues borrowed from animation; streak and ghosting lines, deformations as well as conventional indicators such as arrowheads. Fusing spatial and dynamic cues for CBVR promises advantages not only in terms of usability, but also constraining search to yield improved precision and performance.