Building self-organized image retrieval network

Abstract

We propose a self-organized content-based Image Retrieval Network (IRN) that is inspired by a Metric Social Network (MSN) search system. The proposed network model is strictly data-owner oriented so no data redistribution among peers is needed in order to efficiently process queries. Thus a shared database where each peer is fully in charge of its data, is created. The self-organization of the network is obtained by exploiting the social-network approach of the MSN -the connections between peers in the network are created as social-network relationships formed on the basis of a queryanswer principle. The knowledge of answers to previous queries is used to fast navigate to peers, possibly containing the best answers to new queries. Additionally, the network uses a randomized mechanism to explore new and unvisited parts of the network. In this way, the self-adaptability and robustness of the system are achieved. The proposed concepts are verified using a real network consisting of 2,000 peers containing descriptive features of 10 million images from the Flickr Photo Sharing system.