Visual Image Browsing and Exploration (Vibe): User Evaluations of Image Search Tasks

One of the fundamental challenges in designing an image retrieval system is choosing a method by which the images that match a given query are presented to the searcher. Traditional approaches have used a grid layout that requires a sequential evaluation of the images. Recent advances in image processing and computing power have made similarity-based organization of images feasible. In this paper, we present an approach that places visually similar images near one another, and supports dynamic zooming and panning within the image search results. A user study was conducted on two alternate implementations of our prototype system, the findings from which illustrate the benefit that an interactive similarity-based image organization approach has over the traditional method for displaying image search results.