• If we want to find objects that are similar, by what terms do we define "similarity"?

• Use a Transformation Function
  -it can let the user decide what similarities to look for
  -we can take these similarities and map objects in attribute space so that "like" objects are mapped closer than unlike ones

• Shape Similarity Example
  -We want to find objects with little area difference when the two objects are place over each other
  • Blur the query point
  • Only look at the first k rectangles since these are increasingly good approximations of the shapes
  • Problems
    - Multiple Representations
    Possible solutions: store all representations in DB -BIG DB
    at query time, query for all reresentations of the query object and take union of these -Longer query time
    - Dimension Mismatch
    Add Dummy rectangles of size zero
  • Experiment and Results