In this work, we are interested in technologies that will allow users to actively browse and navigate large image databases and to retrieve images through interactive fast browsing and navigation. The development of a browsing/navigation-based image retrieval system has at least two challenges. The first is that the system’s graphical user interface (GUI) should intuitively reflect the distribution of the images in the database in order to provide the users with a mental picture of the database content and a sense of orientation during the course of browsing/navigation. The second is that it has to be fast and responsive, and be able to respond to users actions at an interactive speed in order to engage the users. We have developed a method that attempts to address these challenges of a browsing/navigation based image retrieval systems. The unique feature of the method is that we take an integrated approach to the design of the browsing/navigation GUI and the indexing and organiza...