Visual Information Systems This book is a thoroughly arranged anthology outlining the state of the art in the emerging area of visual informationsystems. The chapters presented are a selection of thoroughly refereed and revised full papers first presented at the First International Conference on visual Information Systems held in February 1996. Next generation information systems have a high visual content and there will be a shift in emphasis from a paradigm of predominantly alphanumeric data processing to one of visual information processing. The book provides a detailed introductory chapter two keynotes by leading authorities sections on design and architecture database management and modelling contend based search and retrieval feature extraction and indexing query model and interface and object recognition and content organization