Image retrieval by positive and negative examples

Systems for content based image retrieval typically support access to database images through the query-by-example paradigm. This includes query-by-image and query-by-sketch. Since query-by-sketch can be difficult in some cases-lack of sketching abilities, difficulty to detect distinguishing image features-generally querying is performed through the query-by-image paradigm. A limiting factor of this paradigm is that a single sample image rarely includes all and only the characterizing elements the user is looking for. In this paper a system is presented that supports query-by-image using multiple image examples. Examples can be positive and negative and can be edited in order to disregard irrelevant image features.