Multimedia computing-a new object-oriented paradigm

Apart from certain highly specialised domains, current generic support for audio and visual data in computing systems is based on classical signal processing approaches that consider the data to consist of only a single or multidimensional array of sample values. No structural significance is considered to exist in this data set except from low-order statistical relationships between the values. This limits utility and application of the data within computing systems. As the prevalence of multimedia computing and systems increases the need for a new paradigm capable of supporting generic content-based, object-oriented access and processing across a wide range of domains has become apparent. This paper explores the evolution of content-based, object-oriented multimedia computing and presents a new paradigm for its realisation.