Wavelet-based salient points for image retrieval

The use of interest points in content-based image retrieval allows the image index to represent local properties of the image. Classic corner detectors can be used for this purpose. However, they have drawbacks when applied to various natural images for image retrieval, because visual features need not be corners and corners may gather in small regions. We present a salient point detector that extract points where variations occur in the image, whether they are corner-like or not. The detector is based on the wavelet transform to detect global variations as well as local ones. The wavelet-based salient points are evaluated for image retrieval with a retrieval system using texture features. In this experiment our method provides better retrieval performance compared with other point detectors.