• Journal of Information Management
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.71-94
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• 2011

Query by visual example is the principal query paradigm for expressing queries in a content-based image retrieval environment. Query by image and query by sketch have long been purported as being viable methods of query formulation yet there is little empirical evidence to support their efficacy in facilitating query formulation. The ability of the searcher to express their information problem to an information retrieval system is fundamental to the retrieval process. The aim of this research was to investigate the query by image and query by sketch methods in supporting a range of information problems through a usability experiment in order to contribute to the gap in knowledge regarding the relationship between searchers' information problems and the query methods required to support efficient and effective visual query formulation. The results of the experiment suggest that query by image is a viable approach to visual query formulation. In contrast, the results strongly suggest that there is a significant mismatch between the searchers information problems and the expressive power of the query by sketch paradigm in supporting visual query formulation. The results of a usability experiment focusing on efficiency (time), effectiveness (errors) and user satisfaction show that there was a significant difference, p<0.001, between the two query methods on all three measures: time (Z=-3.597, p<0.001), errors (Z=-3.317, p<0.001), and satisfaction (Z=-10.223, p<0.001). The results also show that there was a significant difference in participants perceived usefulness of the query tools Z=-4.672, p<0.001.

• Journal of the Korean Society for information Management
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.135-158
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• 2011

The ability of the searcher to express their information problem to an information retrieval system is fundamental to the retrieval process. Query by visual example is the principal query paradigm for expressing queries in a content-based image retrieval environment yet there is little empirical evidence to support its efficacy in facilitating query formulation. The aim of this research was to investigate the usability of the query by colour method in supporting a range of information problems in order to contribute to the gap in knowledge regarding the relationship between searchers' information problems and the query methods required to support efficient and effective visual query formulation. The results strongly suggest that the query method does not support visual query formulation and that there is a significant mismatch between the searchers information problems and the expressive power of the retrieval paradigm.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea CI
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• v.38 no.5
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• pp.1-15
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• 2001

Expressing complex query conditions in a concise and intuitive way has been a challenge in the design of visual object-oriented query languages. We propose a visual query language called VOQL (Visual Object oriented Query Language) for object oriented databases. By employing the visual notation of graph and Venn diagram, the database schema and the advanced features of object oriented queries such as multi-valued path expressions and quantifiers can be represented in a simple way. VOQL has such good features as simple and intuitive syntax, well-defined semantics, and excellent expressive power of object-oriented queries compared with previous visual object-oriented query languages.

• Proceedings of the KSRS Conference
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• 2003.11a
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• pp.455-457
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• 2003

Diverse researches are working moving objects. The most important activities in a moving object database system are query and analysis of spatio -temporal data providing decision-making and problem solving support. Traditional spatial database query language and tools are inappropriate of the real world entities. This paper presents a spatio-temporal query and analysis tool with visual environment. It provides effective, interactive and user-friendly as well as statistic analysis. The moving objects database system stores plentiful moving objects data and performs spatio-temporal and nonspatio-temporal queries.

• Journal of KIISE:Software and Applications
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.551-562
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• 2000

Content-based image retrieval system retrieves an image from a database using visual features. Among approaches to express visual aspects in queries, 'query by sketch' is most convenient and expressive. However, every 'query by sketch' system has the query imperfectness problem. GContent-based image retrieval system retrieves an image from a database using visual features. Among approaches to express visual aspects in queries, 'query by sketch' is most convenient and expressive. However, every 'query by sketch' system has the query imperfectness problem. Generally, the query image produced by a user is different from the intended target image. To overcome this problem, many image retrieval systems use the spatial relationships of the objects, instead of pixel coordinates of the objects. In this paper, a query-converting algorithm for an image retrieval system, which uses the spatial relationship of every two objects as an image feature, is proposed. The proposed algorithm converts the query image into a graph that has the minimum number of edges, by eliminating every transitive edge. Since each edge in the graph represents the spatial relationship of two objects, the elimination of unnecessary edges makes the retrieval process more efficient. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm leads the smaller number of comparison in searching process as compared with other algorithms that do not guarantee the minimum number of edges.

• The Transactions of the Korea Information Processing Society
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• v.6 no.6
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• pp.1447-1457
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• 1999

Visual Object Query language(VOQL) proposed recently is a visual object-oriented database query language which can effectively represent queries on complex structured data, since schema information is visually included in query expressions. VOQL, which is a graph-based query language with inductively defined semantics, can concisely represent various text-based path expressions by graph, and clearly convey the semantics of complex path expressions. however, the existing VOQL assumes that all the attributes are multi-valued, and cannot visualize the concept of binding of object variables. therefore, VPAL query expressions are not intuitive, so that it is difficult to extend the existing VOQL theoretically. In this paper, we propose VOQL that improved on these problems. The improved VOQL visualizes the result of a single-valued attribute and that of a multi-valued attribute as a visual element and a subblob, respectively, and specifies the binding of object variables by introducing visual variables, so that the improved VOQL intuitively and clearly represents the semantics of queries.

• ETRI Journal
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.246-248
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• 2007

Query-by-example (QBE) is a well-known method for image retrieval. In reality, however, an example image to be used for the query is rarely available. Therefore, it is often necessary to find a good example image to be used for the query before applying the QBE method. Query-by-layout (QBL) is our proposal for that purpose. In particular, we make use of the visual descriptors such as the edge histogram descriptor (EHD) and the color layout descriptor (CLD) in MPEG-7. Since image features of the CLD and the EHD can be localized in terms of a$4{\times}4$ sub-image, we can specify image features such as color and edge distribution on each sub-image separately for image retrieval without a query image. Experimental results show that the proposed query method can be used to retrieve a good image as a starting point for further QBE-based image retrieval.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems Conference
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• 2003.09a
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• pp.451-454
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• 2003

A new query method, called query by visual keys, is proposed to aim easy operation and efficient region-based image retrieval (RBIR). Visual keys are constructed from representative regions/subimages in a given image database, and the database is indexed with visual keys. A system on PC is presented, where text retrieval techniques are applied to the image retrieval with visual keys. Experimental results show that one retrieval is done within 4ms and that the proposed system achieves the comparable retrieval precision (with user-friendly operation and low computational cost) to conventional region based image retrieval systems

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SC
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.50-58
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• 2007

In this paper, we propose a query-based visual attention algorithm for effective object finding of a vision-based mobile robot. This algorithm is developed by extending conventional bottom-up visual attention algorithms. In our proposed algorithm various conspicuity maps are merged to make a saliency map, where weighting values are determined by query-dependent object properties. The saliency map is then used to find possible attentive location of queried object. To show the validities of our proposed algorithm, several objects are employed to compare performances of our proposed algorithm with those of conventional bottom-up approaches. Here, as one of exemplar query-dependent object property, color property is used.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.121-139
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• 2001

VOQL* query language, recently proposed, is a visual language for object-oriented databases. It is based on Ven Diagram and graph, so that the underlying schema structure can be naturally implied in query expressions. In VOQL*, structural relationship among the objects used in a query expression is represented graphically and thus it has formal semantics that can be inductively defined, as well as it can be used with ease. In this paper, we proposed revised VOQL* and introduced its query processor, InQs(Intelligent Querying System). While retaining the merit of VOQL* that it allows the structural relationship among the objects to be represented visually, the revised VOQL* has another merit that users can formulate a query interactively using various forms supplied by InQs. As a query processor that translates queries in revised VOQL into those in ODMG OQL, InQs provides an environment in which users express queries in revised VOQL* and then the system automatically translates them into those in ODMG OQL. Translation algorithm of InQs is much simpler and intuitive than other algorithms used in QUIVER and other systems, since it reflects the formal semantics of VOQL*, which is defined inductively.