IMAGE RETRIEVAL SYSTEM

An image retrieval system contains a database with a large number of images. The system retrieves images from the database that are similar to a query image entered by the user. The images in the database are grouped in clusters according to a similarity criterion so that mutually similar images reside in the same cluster. Each cluster has a cluster center which is representative for the images in it. A first step of the search to similar images selects the clusters that may contain images similar with the query image, by comparing the query image with the cluster centers of all clusters. A second step of the search compares the images in the selected clusters with the query image in order to determine their similarity with the query image.