Introduction

Abstract

This introduction summarizes the entire book. The book focuses on the processing and search tools applicable to the management of new multimedia documents. These matters merge in the methodology of MIR, an organic system composed of the TR, VR, VDR and AR systems. One of the book's goals is to demonstrate the limitations of operating within the terms of a generic Information Retrieval (IR) system, through textual language only. MIR offers a better alternative, whereby each type of digital document can be analyzed and searched by language elements appropriate to its nature. MIR's approach to information search, which directly handles the concrete content of the documents, is defined as content-based. The integration of content-based, or the content-related conception of information handling, with the traditional semantic conception, has the potential to provide the advantages of both systems in the accessing of information.