High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Content-based image retrieval (CBIR), also known as query by image content (QBIC) and content-based visual information retrieval (CBVIR) is the application of computer vision to the image retrieval problem, that is, the problem of searching for digital images in large databases. (see this survey for a recent scientific overview of the CBIR field). "Content-based" means that the search will analyze the actual contents of the image. The term 'content' in this context might refer to colors, shapes, textures, or any other information that can be derived from the image itself. Without the ability to examine image content, searches must rely on metadata such as captions or keywords, which may be laborious or expensive to produce.