Global-to-Local or Local-to-Global? Enhancing Image Retrieval with Efficient Local Search and Effective Global Re-ranking

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Aiger, Dror, Cao, Bingyi, Chen, Kaifeng, Araujo, Andre
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Aiger, Dror
Cao, Bingyi
Chen, Kaifeng
Araujo, Andre
author_facet Aiger, Dror
Cao, Bingyi
Chen, Kaifeng
Araujo, Andre
contents The dominant paradigm in image retrieval systems today is to search large databases using global image features, and re-rank those initial results with local image feature matching techniques. This design, dubbed global-to-local, stems from the computational cost of local matching approaches, which can only be afforded for a small number of retrieved images. However, emerging efficient local feature search approaches have opened up new possibilities, in particular enabling detailed retrieval at large scale, to find partial matches which are often missed by global feature search. In parallel, global feature-based re-ranking has shown promising results with high computational efficiency. In this work, we leverage these building blocks to introduce a local-to-global retrieval paradigm, where efficient local feature search meets effective global feature re-ranking. Critically, we propose a re-ranking method where global features are computed on-the-fly, based on the local feature retrieval similarities. Such re-ranking-only global features leverage multidimensional scaling techniques to create embeddings which respect the local similarities obtained during search, enabling a significant re-ranking boost. Experimentally, we demonstrate solid retrieval performance, setting new state-of-the-art results on the Revisited Oxford and Paris datasets.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_04351
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Global-to-Local or Local-to-Global? Enhancing Image Retrieval with Efficient Local Search and Effective Global Re-ranking
Aiger, Dror
Cao, Bingyi
Chen, Kaifeng
Araujo, Andre
Information Retrieval
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
The dominant paradigm in image retrieval systems today is to search large databases using global image features, and re-rank those initial results with local image feature matching techniques. This design, dubbed global-to-local, stems from the computational cost of local matching approaches, which can only be afforded for a small number of retrieved images. However, emerging efficient local feature search approaches have opened up new possibilities, in particular enabling detailed retrieval at large scale, to find partial matches which are often missed by global feature search. In parallel, global feature-based re-ranking has shown promising results with high computational efficiency. In this work, we leverage these building blocks to introduce a local-to-global retrieval paradigm, where efficient local feature search meets effective global feature re-ranking. Critically, we propose a re-ranking method where global features are computed on-the-fly, based on the local feature retrieval similarities. Such re-ranking-only global features leverage multidimensional scaling techniques to create embeddings which respect the local similarities obtained during search, enabling a significant re-ranking boost. Experimentally, we demonstrate solid retrieval performance, setting new state-of-the-art results on the Revisited Oxford and Paris datasets.
title Global-to-Local or Local-to-Global? Enhancing Image Retrieval with Efficient Local Search and Effective Global Re-ranking
topic Information Retrieval
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.04351