Within the so-called Information Presentation field, the problem of effective browsing of large image databases has so-far received relatively limited attention. Although many have been the systems developed for fast identification of pictures with specific characteristics (classified manually, by associating textual metadata with them, or automatically, through complex mathematical measures of color, texture and shape), "ordinary" image presentation usually occurs by displaying pictures arranged in a grid. In point of fact, this is a good solution for a limited number of items, but it may not scale properly when dealing with much more images (in the order of thousands).
Starting from the assumption that in many cases the user does not know precisely what to search, we concentrate on methods which allow all the images of a collection to be presented in short times. In other words, we want the user to be provided with "global views" of the whole database, so as to be able to select those images he or she "likes" more.