Pictorial indexing for an integrated pictorial and textual IR environment

Abstract

Information retrieval (IR) systems were ongmally devel oped to process, store, search and retrieve narrative informa tion. Structured databases are therefore created to store the items contairung enough information to identify and retneve the onginal documents. This paper proposes an extension of classification and indexing to pictorial data, specifically to pictorial parts of multimedia documents. This goal is attained by adopting structural techniques for digital image description. The de scriptions of the objects (digital structures) present in the image are proposed as pictorial index terms. Such a generaliza tion has led to a uniform management of the non-homoge neous kinds of data composing the document and has allowed the outlining of a multimedia IR system raised from interdisci plinary experiences. In the paper the approach to image description is presented and a control structure to index textual and pictorial data is discussed.