How to retrieve multimedia documents described by MPEG-7

The “Semantic Web” aims at enhancing the functionality of the current web to bring “meaning” to the content of web pages so that to considerably improve the access to this content. Bringing meaning to multimedia content is the aim of the MPEG-7 standard. However, merely attaching MPEG-7 descriptions to multimedia content does not necessarily make access to this type of content more effective. For MPEG-7 to considerably improve the access to multimedia content, we first require means to make the multimedia content searchable according to specific application contexts and user needs. This paper describes the development and implementation of the Semantic Views Query Language, which provides an abstract model reflecting the user retrieval needs and behaviours. A second requirement i s to consider features specific to MPEG-7 descriptions, i.e. a mixture of content and factual knowledge, and structure, in providing a relevance-based ranking of multimedia material according to user information needs. This paper describes the development and implementation of a Retrieval Model for MPEG-7 annotated multimedia content, which encompasses these features in a uniform manner.