MPEG-7: a content description standard beyond compression

The proliferation of multimedia content requires standard methods for content description to facilitate exchange and reuse of content among different applications along the media value chain. ISO is in the process of developing a content description standard called MPEG-7, which unlike the previous MPEG standards goes beyond compression. Formally called "Multimedia Content Description Interface", IMPEG-7 will provide a standardized description of various types of multimedia information by 2001. In this paper we outline the objectives, required technologies and some potential applications that can benefit from MPEG-7. We present several technologies that we have developed at Philips Research and proposed to the international standardization organization. These include visual descriptors for both still images and video. Examples include descriptors that enable visual search by similarity using color and edges and important visual entities such as faces and text.