There has recently been a rapid development in the use of content for retrieving images from image databases with many papers describing a wide range of techniques [1, 10, 13]. Sometimes these are tuned to specific application domains but some systems provide basic content based image retrieval tools of wider applicability. A good example is the QBIC, Query By Image Content, system [5, 14], developed by IBM, which uses combinations of colour, shape and texture for image retrieval and the Manchester Content Addressable Image Database [12].
Typically the aim is to retrieve an image from the database if it contains features specified by the user, either by drawing a sketch or identifying similar features in a displayed image. However, little work has been published on navigating from images to other parts of a multimedia information collection when using image content as the key with which to determine the available routes to be navigated. Part of the reason for this is that most hypermedia systems rely on fixed or hard wired links between parts of the multimedia information collection even when navigating from text. A notable exception is the system under development at NEC [8, 9], which is a hypermedia system in which non-textual information may be retrieved using media-based queries.