An object of the present invention is to provide an image retrieval system
for computing similarity in the case when components are different
between an image feature vector of a query image and the image feature
vectors of images to be retrieved when retrieval is carried out by using
features of images. A first image feature vector conversion device
converts a query image feature vector into a first image feature vector
for use in a similarity computation according to similarity computation
image feature vector configuration information describing a given
configuration of an image feature vector for use in a similarity
computation. A second image feature vector conversion device converts an
images-to-be-retrieved feature vector into a second image feature vector
for use in a similarity computation according to the similarity
computation image feature vector configuration information. The image
feature vector similarity computation devices compare the first image
feature vector with the second image feature vector according to the
similarity computation image feature vector configuration information,
and compute the similarity.