Multimedia information systems is a rapidly growing area of research and development, attracting increasing interest from a variety of application fields including business, entertainment, manufacturing, education, CAD, CAE, medicine, etc. Due to the diverse nature of the information dealt with and the increased functionality (e.g., user interaction), the capabilities and system requirements of multimedia information systems dramatically exceed those of conventional databases and database management systems. This book presents an integrated approach to interactive multimedia documents. After summarizing the prerequisites and background information, the author develops an IMD model taking into account interaction and spatiotemporal composition. Based on this model, the author develops an integrated framework covering most of the steps during the life cycle of an IMD, namely data modeling, authoring, verification and querying, execution and rendering, and indexing.
