MIRACLES: Multimedia Information RetrievAl, CLassification, and Exploration System

This paper describes our multimedia information retrieval system, MIRACLES, for retrieving multimedia content such as web pages, business documents, and movies. MIRACLES creates information units, which are collections of related media items, such as an image and text explaining the image. MIRACLES arranges and displays the information units in 3-D space so that similar information units are located near each other. The user can narrow down the retrieval of the multimedia content by rearranging the information units in the display space. MIRACLES is already in practical use, and is employed in some commercial products and services. We are presently evaluating the use of MIRACLES by actual users.