Abstract: Image retrieval system is used for browsing, searching and retrieving images from a large database of digital images. Content-based means that the search analyzes the contents of the image rather than the metadata such as keywords, tags, or descriptions associated with the image. The term content might refer to colors, shapes, textures, or any other information that can be derived from the image itself. Content Based Image Retrieval (CBIR) is desirable because searches that rely purely on metadata are dependent on annotation quality and completeness. To develop better content based image retrieval system, it is important to improve various processes involved in retrieval like feature extraction, image segmentation, image decomposition and similarity matching techniques. In this paper we discuss the fundamental aspects, visual features and techniques for fast searching and retrieval of images from the database.

Keywords: feature extraction, multidimensional indexing, retrieval design, image decomposition, matching techniques.