Efficient User-Adaptable Similarity Search in Large Multimedia Databases

Efficient user-adaptable similarity search more and more increases in its importance for multimedia and spatial database systems. As a general similarity model for multi-dimensional vectors that is adaptable to application requirements and user preferences, we use quadratic form distance functions which have been successfully applied to color histograms in image databases [Fal+ 94]. The components aij of the matrix A denote similarity of the components i and j of the vectors. Beyond the Euclidean distance which produces spherical query ranges, the similarity distance defines a new query type, the ellipsoid query. We present new algorithms to efficiently support ellipsoid query processing for various user-defined similarity matrices on existing precomputed indexes. By adapting techniques for reducing the dimensionality and employing a multi-step query processing architecture, the method is extended to high-dimensional data spaces. In particular, from our algorithm to reduce the similar...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 1997
• Where: VLDB
• Authors: Thomas Seidl, Hans-Peter Kriegel
• Keywords: Database, Efficient User-adaptable Similarity, Ellipsoid Query, General Similarity Model, VLDB 1997