Open Access

Ingmar Decker

• This report describes the development of an experimental service for picture-based document retrieval for the Electronic Visualization Library (EVlib). The EVlib is a digital library for scientific visualization, established at the Konrad-Zuse-Zentrum für Informationstechnik Berlin (ZIB). The picture-based retrieval service allows users to look for documents by describing the pictures they contain. This query method was developed based on the assumption that (1) pictures often represent relevant parts of the contents of a document, and (2) pictures are often remembered well. A picture-based approach provides a new quality of accessing and exploring scientific literature. Motivation, concepts and realization of our service are outlined. Results of a user test are presented, too. The results indicate that this service can be used for searching and browsing the document collection in principle. On the other hand, problems were detected which can give fruitful hints for future work concerning document and image retrieval.