Issues on modelling multimedia information retrieval

Multimedia Documenl Bases (MDBs) are an emerging generation of information systerns, based on large collections or intcrrclatcdcornplex objccts, whose basic components maybe of text, graphics, image, and voice type. Queries in MDBs may refer IO the conteni of the stored rnultimedia objects,This is callcd content-basequerying.This papcr reviews contcnt-basedsearching in text, image and video database systcrns and discusses the theoretical basis of a model for multimedia docurncnts.TIié modelshouldenable the users iClretrieve documentson tbc basis of their structure and contcnt, thus providingboth thc Iunctionality or a database and an informationrctrieval mode!. Finally, an ESPRIT Basic Rescarch Action, FERMI, is prcsentcd. The main objective of FERMI is lO address the multimcdia informatìon retricvalproblem.