A hierarchical characterization scheme for image retrieval

In this paper, we present a study of hierarchically characterizing image content from coarse level to fine level conducted using a series of shape features as a case in point. In this work, we have empirically proved that this hierarchical characterization is effective and necessary. We have used this hierarchical multimedia content characterization scheme in our shape retrieval experiments and see that the hierarchical method obtains similar performance in the retrieval of similar shapes to that of the simultaneous method (calculating similarity based on all features at a time), while the efficiency has been increased significantly.