Spatial color histograms for content-based image retrieval

Abstract

The color histogram is an important technique for color image database indexing and retrieval. In this paper, the traditional color histogram is modified to capture the spatial layout information of each color, and three types of spatial color histograms are introduced: annular, angular and hybrid color histograms. Experiments show that, with a proper trade-off between the granularity in the color and spatial dimensions, these histograms outperform both the traditional color histogram and some existing histogram refinements such as the color coherent vector.