Current day multimedia information systems
distinguish themselves from older day
information systems not only by what information
they contain, that includes multimedia objects such
as images and sounds, but also by a much more extensive repertoire
of query mechanisms,
visual interfaces and rich presentation facilities.
See [Spaces].
S.K. Chang and M.F. Costabile -- Visual Interfaces to Multimedia Databases
The Handbook of Multimedia Information Management
multimedia information systems
- storage technology -- multimedia databases
- wideband communication -- distribution accross networks
- parallel computing -- voice, image and video processing
- graphic co-processors -- visual information with high image quality
multimedia applications
geographical information systems,
office automation,
distance learning,
health care,
computer aided design,
scientific visualization, and
information visualization.
multimedia databases
- the size of data,
- synchronization issues,
- query mechanisms, and
- real time processing.
an information space is a representation of the information
stored in a system or database that is used to present
that information to a user.
we must distinguish between a visual information space
(for presentation),
a logical information space (in which we can reason
about abstract information objects) and
a physical information space
(where our concrete multimedia objects are stored).
- physical information space -- images, animations, video, voice, ...
- logical information space -- abstract database objects
- presentational information space -- to present information to the user
a logical information space is a multidimensional
space where each point represents an object from the
physical information space (read database).
- information object -- a point in the (logical) information space
- query -- an arbitrary region in this information space
- clue -- a region with directional information, to facilitate browsing
XML in 10 points
- XML is for structuring data
- XML looks a bit like HTML
- XML is text, but isn't meant to be read
- XML is verbose by design
- XML is a family of technologies
- XML is new, but not that new
- XML leads HTML to XHTML
- XML is the basis for RDF and the Semantic Web
- XML is license-free, platform-independent and well-supported
related technologies
- Xlink -- hyperlinks
- XPointer -- anchors and fragments
- XSL -- advanced stylesheets
- XSLT -- transformation language
- DOM -- object model for application programmer interface
- schemas -- to specify the structure of XML documents
XML
- separate data from presentation
- transmit data between applications
