Abstract

Corel dataset. Images are represented using ‘space-color histograms ’ (section 4.1). Each node shows a synthetically generated ‘quilt ’ – an icon that represents that node’s model of images. As can be seen, common colors (such as black) are represented at top nodes and therefore are shared among multiple images. Bottom: an example image from each leaf node is shown below each leaf. As more images and categories become available, organizing them becomes crucial. We present a novel statistical method for organizing a collection of images into a treeshaped hierarchy. The method employs a non-parametric Bayesian model and is completely unsupervised. Each image is associated with a path through a tree. Similar images share initial segments of their paths and therefore have a smaller distance from each other. Each internal node in the hierarchy represents information that is common to images whose paths pass through that node, thus providing a compact image representation. Our experiments show that a disorganized collection of images will be organized into an intuitive taxonomy. Furthermore, we find that the taxonomy allows good image categorization and, in this respect, is superior to the popular LDA model. 1.

Citations