Modeling video objects in 4DIS temporal database system

Video objects are temporal in nature-. A video object is composed of a set of video frames which are related in a total time ordering. By imposing additional timing constraints among video frames, various presentation operators on video objects could be defined. A core set of presentation operators include Play, Pause, Resume, Fast Forward, Fast Backward, Slow Motion, and Stop. A video database system must be able to support the temporal ordering of video frames and the temporal constraints required by any presentation operators. In this paper, we demonstrate how our Four Dimensional Information Space (4DIS) temporal database system is used to model video objects and the presentation operators. Since time is defined as a first class object in 4D1S, querying operators and constraints for time objects are supported. These temporal querying operators and constraints are used to describe the timing requirements of video objects and the presentation operators. This allows users to describe video objects and operators declaratively, without worrying about their low level representation. Furthermore, a user could specify arbitrary operations on video objects using the query language supported by 4DIS. This is in contrast with existing video database systems in which operators on video objects are limited and are defined in advance.