ToCAI: A framework for indexing and retrieval of multimediadocuments

摘要

This paper presents the ToCAI (table of content-analytical index)description scheme (DS) for content description of audio-visualdocuments. The original idea comes from the structure used for technicalbooks. One may easily understand a book's sequential organization bylooking at its table of contents while quickly retrieving elements ofinterest by means of the analytical index. This description schemeprovides therefore a hierarchical description of the time sequentialstructure of a multimedia document (thanks to the ToC), suitable forbrowsing, together with an “analytical index” (AI) ofaudio-visual objects of the document, suitable for effective retrieval.Besides, two sub-description schemes for information about descriptiongeneration and about the metadata associated with the document are alsoenclosed in the general DS. The detailed structure of the DS is alsopresented by means of UML (unified modelling language) notation and anapplication example is shown. Finally, some considerations concerningthe adopted visual interface are made