  Region-based image retrieval (RBIR) technique is revisited. In early attempts
at RBIR in the late 90s, researchers found many ways to specify region-based
queries and spatial relationships; however, the way to characterize the
regions, such as by using color histograms, were very poor at that time. Here,
we revisit RBIR by incorporating semantic specification of objects and
intuitive specification of spatial relationships. Our contributions are the
following. First, to support multiple aspects of semantic object specification
(category, instance, and attribute), we propose a multitask CNN feature that
allows us to use deep learning technique and to jointly handle multi-aspect
object specification. Second, to help users specify spatial relationships among
objects in an intuitive way, we propose recommendation techniques of spatial
relationships. In particular, by mining the search results, a system can
recommend feasible spatial relationships among the objects. The system also can
recommend likely spatial relationships by assigned object category names based
on language prior. Moreover, object-level inverted indexing supports very fast
shortlist generation, and re-ranking based on spatial constraints provides
users with instant RBIR experiences.
