Research issues

• The analysis of the actual datasets to be stored: their formats and description.
• The development of the data model and the implementation of a system that supports the data model and the language.
• The conceptual level design of the catalogue schema.
• The design of a simple language for the retrieval and manipulation of the catalogue database.
• Integrating spatial indexing mechanisms with the rapid prototype.
• Integration of Prospero-like file systems for distributed image databases
• The development of appropriate image feature selection algorithms and similarity measures for indexing image data and the decelopment of content-based index structures that are based on image features.
• Supporting distribution and replication of index structures and investigating dynamic content-based index structures.
• Design of protocols for concurrency control and recovery, and design of suitable fault-tolerant resource allocation algorithms.