Methods and devices for indexing and searching for digital images taking into account the spatial distribution of the content of the images

摘要

According to the invention, a method of indexing a digital image comprises the following steps: generating a first information item (H(Im)) characteristic of the visual content of the image (Im) to be indexed; generating a second information item (W(Im)) characteristic of the spatial distribution of the visual content of the image (Im) in its image plane; and associating, with the image (Im), an index (IDX(Im)) composed of the first information item (H(Im)) and the second information item (W(Im)).;More particularly, the step of generating the first information item (H(Im)) has the following substeps: dividing the image plane of the image (Im) according to a partitioning comprising a predefined number N of blocks (B_i); extracting, from each of the blocks (B_i), a data item of a first type (h_i^Im) representing at least one characteristic of the visual content of the block under consideration; and generating the first information item (H(Im)) as being a vector having N components, each of which is one of the data items of the first type (h_i^Im).