Exploratory image databases

A volume in the Academic Press Series in Communications, Networking, and Multimedia, edited by Jerry D. Gibson, Southern Methodist University takes a comprehensive look at the developing field of image databases. It attempts to delineate the boundaries of the field and to determine the common features and key differences between multimedia databases and the neighboring areas of databases, image analysis, and information retrieval. The two key concepts that frame image databases are the process of signification in images, and the structural properties of image features as data types. The author proposes that signification in images is a different process than in language, and that it tan be divided into three different modalities. Each one of these modalities gives rise to a different query paradigm and, consequently, to different models of databases. For two of these three modalities, exploration (defined as a mix of navigation and query), rather than simple querying, is the correct interaction model between the user and the database. Image features are data types endowed with rather complex structure. The study of the syntactic structure of features is essential in order to incorporate them into an established database model, and to bridge the gap between the heterogeneous interface and interaction models necessary for images on one side, and the technical requirements of fast and robust access on the other.