Information retrieval in multimedia: exploiting MPEG-7 metadata by the use of ontologies and fuzzy thematic spaces

This paper presents a common framework for the conceptual information of MPEG-7, interoperable with the semantic Web, and providing high performance search capabilities, using fuzzy set theory and ontology relations. Starting from the meta-data model of the MPEG-7, to which we add few layers while keeping the existent, so as to guarantee compatibility with the standard, we then link MPEG-7 descriptions to ontologies. These ontologies are used to define precisely each element used in the description scheme of MPEG-7. In order to allow similarities estimations and performing searches, the model is projected into a 5-dimensional space that permits to describe easily the content of multimedia documents.