Intelligent multimedia document models
Computers are entry points into a global network of information exchange and business transactions. Facilitating data and knowledge exchange on the web is thus essential. Computer-based ontologies will play a major role in supporting information exchange and will enable the creation of the semantic web, where knowledge, information and meta-data will be accessible to computers as well as their human users. An ontology is a set of definitions for the representation of knowledge. Computer-based ontologies are formal, structured representations of a domain of knowledge, and they play an important role in knowledge sharing among computers and people. The web contains different 'containers' of knowledge and media objects. The CULTOS project has standardised a number of interfaces for such containers of multimedia documents. The result is a structure where different applications can read and understand each other's content. Traditional multimedia document models arrange media objects according to temporal, spatial, and interaction relationships. The project has developed the EMMO (Enhanced Multimedia Meta Objects) structure with the capacity to define semantic relationships between time-based media, images and text. The EMMO structure is able to combine three different aspects of multimedia content into a single unit: the media aspect, the semantic aspect and the functional aspect. In addition, and contrary to traditional multimedia document models, EMMOs are less dependant on external applications or software (e.g. database technology, search engines, user agent) for content processing and presentation. In the cultural application domain, EMMOs can validate ontologies of inter-textual relationships, and add value to multimedia collections, by explaining relationships between works of art. EMMOs contribute to the development of web-based education and research facilities, such as interactive on-line presentations, and of studies of inter-textual relations across various areas of European culture. Study of cultural translation across different media, across ethnic and linguistic borders, and across a perceived low-high cultural divide can also benefit from this result. EMMOs are realised in conformance to current and emerging multimedia standards. The model is open and others are invited to use the design principles.