Multimedia and Imaging Databases - IEEE Xplore

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clientiserver examples, including file servers, database servers, video servers, ... Contract Placement. 28. IEEE Communications Magazine February 1998 ...
Multimedia and Imaging Databases Serag Khoshafian and A.Brad Baker, Morgan Kaufmann, 586 pages, 1996, ISBN 1-55860-312-3

REVIEWER: CI-IUNG-SE-IENG LI The multimedia revolution of the past decade has already had a profound impact on computing, business, and even daily life. Multimedia information is spaceintensive; multimedia elements need to be searched, concurrently accessed, updated, and manipulated consistently. Consequently, there is a clear genuine need for a newer generation of database management systems that: 1) allow the storage of various kinds of multimedia data types (time series, audio, images, and video), 2) enable new access methods, including wntent-based indexing, 3) enable automatic migration of data between different storage hierarchies, and 4) permit concurrent access by a large number of users. Multimedia and Irnagzng Databases by Khoshafian and Baker is probably one of the first few books to address all these issues together while keeping the whole discussion tutorial yet comprehensive.

itance, and object identity, are discussed in detail. Examples for schema development and object-oriented database design are given. This chapter certainly has a moderate bias toward object-oriented database systems. For a balanced view, readers should consult Object-Relational DBMSs - The Next Great Wave by Prof. Stonebraker, which has a strong bias toward object-relational databases. Chapter 5 describes clientisewer architecture and multimedia databases. The key issue discussed is clientiserver relationships in an object-oriented environment. An object responding to a message acts as a server; the object sending the message as the client. This concept brings up two competing standards on component object computing: CORBA from the OMG, and OLE 2.0 from Microsoft. The rest of this chapter surveys several clientiserver examples, including file servers, database servers, video servers, and fax servers. This chapter concludes with case studies of Oracle Media Server and the IBM LAN server. Alternative strategies for incorporating multimedia support in relational and object-oriented databases are discussed in Chapter 6. The most critical components Continued on page 30

This book is targeted toward professionals, managers, and high-level executives, but is also excellent for anyone interested in the emergence of multimedia networking, object-relational databases, object-oriented databases, multimedia databases, digital libraries, and hierarchical storage management systems. This book is divided into 12 chapters. The first gives a brief introduction to the necessities of multimedia databases, the structure of clientherver architectures, and integration of databases with hierarchical storage management. Chapter 2 describes the graphical user interface, authoring mechanisms for multimedia systems, and various multimedia applications such as forms, compound documents, hypermedia, and document imaging systems. The third chapter describes various multimedia peripherals and devices. These devices include monitors, scanners, sound cards, video boards, video cameras, printers, plotters, touchscreen devices, storage devices, and so on. The really interesting part of this book begins with the fourth chapter, on object orientation for multimedia databases. The criteria for object-oriented database systems, such as abstract data types, inher-

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are mass storage and content retrieval capabilities support in addition to traditional database support. This chapter also reviews language standardization trends (SQL3, ODMG) and multimedia support in commercial object-relational

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and object-oriented databases. Different issues in dealing with query and retrieval in multimedia databases are described in Chapter 7. The critical one is search and retrieval of any collection of multimedia objects. Indexing of multimedia documents and/or objects is either manual or automatic. Automatic

indexing means index terms are algorithmically indexed and retrieved. Depending on type, multimedia objects can have many attributes and features. Some of these can be derived from the data (e.g., texture, color histogram, shape), while others are relevant to the multimedia objects but usually captured through other mechanisms (author’s name, title, etc.) This chapter discusses many different techniques for content-based retrieval of text and images, which differs from conventional database retrieval in both query and indexing. Conventional database retrieval is usually precise, content-based retrieval mostly fuzzy. Consequently, new interactive query paradigms such as relevance feedback, in which the user refines and resubmits the query, must be developed for content-based queries. Chapter 8 focuses on some classical database issues that also need to be carefully considered in multimedia databases, such as concurrency and recovery. Access methods, essential for efficient access of large database systems, are investigated in Chapter 9. Spatial indexing techniques such as K-d trees, grid files, quad trees, and R-trees (multidimensional extensions of B-trees) are discussed in some detail. As mentioned earlier, a key aspect in a large multimedia database system is the storage management subsystem. Consequently, an entire chapter (Chapter 10) is devoted to the optical file system, caching algorithms, and hierarchical storage management system (HSM) commonly associated with a large multimedia database system. This chapter concludes with case studies of several commercially available HSM systems. The communication and networking aspects of multimedia systems are discussed in Chapter 11,with a very highlevel overview of recent networking technologies such as FDDI, high-speed Ethernet, frame relay, SONET, and ATM. Chapter 12 summarizes the book. A common pitfall of many books on multimedia systems is their ambition to cover everything under the sun related to multimedia. This usually results in superficial treatment of each subject. Fortunately, this book has stuck to the main focus and gives a very thorough and complete discussion of issues concerning multimedia databases. To a large extent, the authors have also done a very good job not showng any bias on each subject. This is an outstanding book on an important emerging area. It is definitely strongly recommended for the professional working in this area wanting to get an update, and also highly recommended for students and researchers interested in starting work in this area.

IEEE Communications Magazine February 1998