Semantic annotation and retrieval of image collections

In order to maximise the benefit of the colossal repository of digital images available both publicly and in private collections, intelligent matchmaking tools are required. Unfortunately, most image search engines rely on free-text search that often returns inaccurate sets of results based on the recurrence of the search keywords in the text accompanying the images. In this paper we present a semantically-enabled image annotation and retrieval engine that relies on methodically structured ontologies for image annotation, thus allowing for more intelligent reasoning about the image content and subsequently obtaining a more accurate set of results and a richer set of alternatives matchmaking the original query.