Synopsis
With the rapid growth in the use of computers to manipulate, process, and reason about multimedia data, the problem of how to store and retrieve such data is becoming increasingly important. Thus, although the field of multimedia database systems is only about 5 years old, it is rapidly becoming a focus for much excitement and research effort. Multimedia database systems are intended to provide unified frameworks for requesting and integrating information in a wide variety of formats, such as audio and video data, document data, and image data. Such data often have special storage requirements that are closely coupled to the various kinds of devices that are used for recording and presenting the data, and for each form of data there are often multiple representations and multiple standards - all of which make the database integration task quite complex. Some of the problems include: - what a multimedia database query means - what kinds of languages to use for posing queries - how to develop compilers for such languages - how to develop indexing structures for storing media on ancillary devices - data compression techniques - how to present and author presentations based on user queries. Although approaches are being developed for a number of these problems, they have often been ad hoc in nature, and there is a need to provide a princi pled theoretical foundation.
From the Back Cover
The emerging information superhighway will bring to homes and businesses the ability to access and manipulate a vast amount of information stored in a variety of forms in different databases. Multimedia systems facilitate the access and manipulation of such information across high-speed networks. Multimedia database systems are a new generation of database systems that will provide a unified and interactive framework for users to request and integrate information stored in a variety of media. Applications of such systems in scientific research, commercial and business activities (such as interactive TV systems for marketing, banking, entertainment, manufacturing, and design), law enforcement, and military operations are numerous and obvious. This book presents basic research establishing the theory and practice of multimedia databasae systems. Issues relating to the theory of such systems, query languages for multimedia databases, indexing structures, implementations of such systems, and industrial and government applications are addressed. The book will form a valuable text for advanced courses in Multimedia Database Systems.
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