A fuzzy object query language (FOQL) for image databases

Content based retrieval systems have been developed for querying image data in which the users can pose queries based on visual properties such as color and texture. These systems, which have advanced the state of the art in image database systems, remarkably lack formal query languages. The traditional query languages are unable to capture the inherent fuzzy nature of the image data and content based querying. The fuzzy object query language (FOQL) presented in this paper addresses the need to support fuzzy values and fuzzy collections required for image databases. It can be used for defining schemas and high level concepts, and for querying image databases. It captures the inherent fuzzy nature of content based retrieval by keeping the query results fuzzy as against other query languages. The users can interactively refine their queries and high level concept definitions using recursive and named query definition constructs in FOQL. Being an extension of ODMG-OQL, FOQL can be easily mapped to ODMG-compliant visual query languages.