Patent ID: 7117226

Claim:
Method of seeking images, from an example image containing a plurality of regions of interest, from amongst a plurality of images stored in a database, each of the stored images being associated with a data item of a first type, referred to as an index of the stored image, representing at least one characteristic of the visual content of the image, said method comprising the following steps: for each region of interest, receiving a data item of a second type indicative of a user selection for a type of taking into account of the content of said region of interest for the seeking of images; calculating a data item of a third type, referred to as the index of the example image, representing at least one characteristic of the visual content of the example image, the structure of said data item of the third type and the method of calculating said data item of the third type depending on said data items of the second type; selecting an image research strategy according to said data items of the second type; calculating a similarity, according to the selected image research strategy, between the example image and each of the images amongst at least one subset of the stored images, said similarity being calculated from said data item of the first type associated with the stored image and the data item of the third type associated with the example image; and supplying at least one image, referred to as the result image, in the database, said at least one result image being selected from amongst said stored images in the database according to its degree of similarity with said example image.