Object-oriented multimedia database system with versioning and content-based retrieval

摘要

A prototype object-oriented multimedia database management system currently being developed is described. The system supports the storage and retrieval of images, video, audio and documents composed of these types. The major features of the system include: (1) content-based indexes for each of the data types, (2) an intuitive user-oriented query language based on these indexes, (3) manual, semi-automatic and automatic indexing modes, (4) object- based user data models incorporated in query processing, (5) image/audio/video processing incorporated in the system, (6) versioning of objects, (7) browsing and navigation facilities. The indexes are interval-based and describe spatio-temporal relations between pairs of objects in the respective media. The query processing mechanism is described, as is the object- oriented data modeling facility. The most innovative aspects of this work are the following: (1) extension of iconic indexing of images to the audio and video data types, (2) an embedding of content-based iconic indexing in a multimedia database management system with particular emphasis on user-oriented indexing and querying, (3) the use of an object-oriented data model to alleviate the aliasing problem in query formation, (4) versioning of images/audio/video to save storage space.