A system for content-retrieval and browsing of kaou monogram using contour and color characteristics

In the research of historical Japanese documents, examination of kaou monograms plays a very important role for specifying the author's identity and the genuineness of the document This work aims to develop a kaou search/browsing system usable via World Wide Web (WWW), for aiding the research of historical documents. One of the requirements to the system is that the kaou images should be retrievable based on their similarity. Formerly, kaou images were retrieved using contour characteristics only, even though the color characteristics are also important for the research of kaous. In the developed method, the color characteristics have been introduced to improve the accuracy of similar kaou image retrieval. The feasibility of the developed method and the system design have been evaluated in a prototype system.