Patent ID: 6925475

Claim:
A method of managing a multimedia database, the method being characterized in that it comprises the following steps: creating an identifier allocator agent for associating a unique reference with each representative element of a multimedia document at each step of the processing; acquiring a multimedia document of heterogeneous content comprising information belonging to at least one of the following categories: image, video, sound, text, animated vector graphics; indexing the multimedia document, where indexing comprises: a1) analyzing the multimedia document both to extract both homogeneous components each belonging to a category of the same type, and also to extract relationships between said homogeneous components; b1) characterizing the content of each of the homogeneous components and establishing relationships between the elements of the content of each of said homogeneous components; c1) establishing the relationships, if any, between the elements belonging to the contents of different homogeneous components; and d1) producing a composite signature combining the indices of each of the homogeneous components, the previously identified relationships, and all of the previously acquired identifiers; storing the indexed multimedia document together with its composite signature; and searching a multimedia document as previously indexed and stored on the basis of a composite request, searching comprising: a2) analyzing the composite request to extract firstly homogeneous requests referring to a category of a single type, and secondly user constraint relationships expressed in the composite request; b2) processing homogeneous requests; c2) formulating results of processing homogeneous requests while taking user constraint relationships into account; and d2) establishing a pertinence order for the results and presenting the results.