Views of media objects in multimedia databases

Multimedia database systems must manage large amounts of graphical, textual, and audio data. To compound the problem, if a multimedia designer creates a new media image from an existing item, current systems store the new object as an independent image. This space is wasted since the data already exists in the system. In order to eliminate this wasted space, views of stored objects should be used instead of replicated data. Views are well known in relational databases to have both benefits and drawbacks. In order to overcome these drawbacks, the paper defines a view schema, which mirrors the media hierarchy; a view dag which determines the base files used to create the view; and view independence, a paradigm for performing operations on views. The criteria for a canonical media algebra are outlined. A canonical media algebra allows multiple editors to instantiate a view. Finally, optimization of specifications is discussed.