This paper describes the extended model for information retrieval (EMIR) designed for complex information description and retrieval and particularly well suited for image modeling. A main object in the proposed model has a three parts specification: a description that is a list of attributes; a composition that is a list of component objects; and a topology that is a list of semantic relationships between component objects, expressing more semantic aspects of the main object structure. The model is well suited for image modeling for two complementary reasons. On one hand, it can distinguish between an object structure and its contents. This is achieved by relaxing the class-object classical instantiation link; thus allowing objects to have individual non categorized contents rather than those predicted in their classes. On the other hand, images have typically very different individual contents, and, therefore, cannot be easily modeled within a structured database model such as the relational model. The query language is organized according to the three-part organization of the model. A simple query has three parts: description, being some constraints on some attributes values; composition, being a set of sub-queries on the composition part of objects; topology, being the specification of special required links on the results of composition sub-queries.
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