Pic1: A Visual Database Interface

Many large image databases are springing up as cheap optical technology lets users store large numbers of images. But there are few intuitive solutions to the problem of finding one image among tens of thousands. We present an approach which is simple, intuitive, and permits imagebased searching on a large database by successive selection. Keywords: interfaces, databases, vector spaces, image analysis. Email: yhlin@cs.indiana.edu y Email: rawlins@cs.indiana.edu z Email: mvanheyn@cs.indiana.edu 1 Introduction When designing interfaces for image databases, current database ideology suggests query-based interfaces expressed in SQL or similar languages (e.g. Cardenas et al, 1993) We believe this approach is not well suited to typical use. Query-based interfaces are hard for most non-experts to use, and wearying even for experts. Users must possess knowledge about the domain of the database, the functionality of the retrieval system, and the classification scheme employed by the dat..