Categorization of image databases for efficient retrieval using robust mixture decomposition

In this paper, we present a robust mixture decomposition technique that automatically finds a compact representation of the data in terms of components. We apply it to the problem of organizing databases for efficient retrieval. The time taken for retrieval is an order of magnitude smaller than that of exhaustive search methods. We also compare our approach with other methods for decomposition that use traditional criteria such as Akaike, Schwarz, and minimum description length. We report results on the VisTex texture image database from the MIT Media Lab.