Patent ID: 7236652

Claim:
An image retrieval apparatus which retrieves an image similar to a predetermined query image from images to be retrieved by using an image feature vector when the configurations of the feature vector of a query image and the feature vector of an image to be compared are different from each other, comprising: image feature vector generation means for generating a frequency distribution feature vector of an image, said image feature vector generation means partitions an image into multiple blocks of a predetermined size, computes an average color for each of said multiple blocks, generates a reduced image of a fixed size on which a transform is performed to obtain a plurality of coefficients, and extracts low frequency coefficient sequences of color signals, the extracted coefficient sequences being converted to obtain said frequency distribution feature vector; first image feature vector conversion means for receiving similarity computation image feature vector configuration information which describes a configuration of an image feature vector for use in a similarity computation and is a frequency distribution feature vector of an image, and converting the image feature vector of the query image into a first image feature vector according to the similarity computation image feature vector configuration information; and second image feature vector conversion means for converting the image feature vector of the images to be retrieved into a second image feature vector according to the similarity computation image feature vector configuration information, wherein similarity between the first image feature vector and the second image feature vector is computed according to the similarity computation image feature vector configuration information.