Towards image retrieval for eight percent of color-blind men

About 8% of men (but not women) are suffering from color blindness. The objective of this work was to investigate the problem of image retrieval based on color cooccurrence features when comparing normal vision and three kinds of color blindness (dichromasia): protanopia, deuteranopia, and tritanopia. Original database comprises 12000 images that were also converted into three dichromatic versions using the Vischeck simulation tool. Results of 48000 queries were used to study influence of color blindness on retrieval results. Principal component analysis, multidimensional scaling, hierarchical clustering, support vector machines, and statistical methods were employed for investigating feature space distortions associated with color blindness.