Using weighted spatial relationships in retrieval by visual contents

An original modeling technique is presented which enables quantitative representation and comparison of the mutual positioning of a pair of extended regions, and which is able to account for the overall distribution of relationships among the individual pixels belonging to the two regions. Properties of the representation are expounded to develop an efficient computation technique and to motivate and assess a metric of similarity for quantitative comparison of spatial relationships between region pairs. Representation and comparison of binary relationships between regions is then embedded within a graph-theoretical framework supporting representation and comparison of the spatial arrangements of images.