Multimedia data modeling through a semantic view mechanism
The semantics of multimedia data, which features context-dependency and media-independency, is of vital importance to multimedia applications but inadequately supported by the state-of-the-art database technology. In this paper, we address this problem by proposing MediaView as an extended object-oriented view mechanism to bridge the "semantic gap" between conventional databases and semantics-intensive multimedia applications. This mechanism captures the dynamic semantics of multimedia using a modelling construct named media view, which formulates a customized context where heterogeneous media objects with similar/related semantics are characterized by additional properties and user-defined semantic relationships. Due to the complex ingredients and dynamic application requirements of multimedia databases, it is however difficult for users to define by themselves individual media views in a top-down fashion. To this end, a unique approach of constructing media views logically is devised. In addition, a set of user level operators is defined and implemented to accommodate the specialization and generalization relationships among the views. The usefulness and elegancy of MediaView are demonstrated by its application in a multi-modal information retrieval system.
multimedia data modelling context-dependency object-oriented view mechanism dynamic semantics media-independency personalized similarity retrieval common profile user profile