Editing Content-based image retrieval (section)

{{Short description|Method of image retrieval}}
[[File:Principe cbir.png|thumb|General scheme of content-based image retrieval]]
'''Content-based image retrieval''', also known as '''query by image content''' ('''[[#QBIC|QBIC]]''') and '''content-based visual information retrieval''' ('''CBVIR'''), is the application of [[computer vision]] techniques to the [[image retrieval]] problem, that is, the problem of searching for [[digital image]]s in large [[database]]s (see this survey<ref name="Survey">''[http://www.ugmode.com/prior_art/lew2006cbm.pdf Content-based Multimedia Information Retrieval: State of the Art and Challenges]''

(Original source, 404'd)[http://www.liacs.nl/home/mlew/mir.survey16b.pdf ''Content-based Multimedia Information Retrieval: State of the Art and Challenges''] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070928040016/http://www.liacs.nl/home/mlew/mir.survey16b.pdf |date=2007-09-28 }}, [[Michael Lew]], et al., [[ACM Transactions on Multimedia Computing, Communications, and Applications]], pp. 1–19, 2006.
</ref> for a scientific overview of the CBIR field). Content-based image retrieval is opposed to traditional '''concept-based approaches''' (see '''[[Concept-based image indexing]]''').

"Content-based" means that the search analyzes the contents of the image rather than the [[Metadata (computing)|metadata]] such as keywords, tags, or descriptions associated with the image. The term "content" in this context might refer to colors, shapes, textures, or any other information that can be derived from the image itself.  CBIR is desirable because searches that rely purely on metadata are dependent on [[Automatic image annotation|annotation]] quality and completeness.