Abstract:

One of the most important bits of every search engine is the query interface. Complex interfaces may cause users to struggle in learning the handling. An example is the query language SQL. It is really powerful, but usually remains hidden to the common user. On the other hand the usage of current languages for Internet search engines is very simple and straightforward. Even beginners are able to find relevant documents.

This paper presents a hybrid query language suitable for both image and text retrieval. It is very similar to those of a full text search engine but also includes some extensions required for content based image retrieval. The language is extensible to cover arbitrary feature vectors and handle fuzzy queries.