SCHEMed: a visual database tool for definition and entry of medical image data

Image information systems, particularly in the medical field, require methods for defining and entering the geometric entities and their properties into the database system. As the geometric entities can be defined in different ways, where definitions can also be implicit, traditional databases and their associated schemes do not apply. In this contribution we argue why object-oriented systems are most appropriate and show how schemes should be defined to meet the demands (medical) image information systems pose. It will turn out that a good way is to divide the database scheme in a semantic and a computational part, based on a geometric algebra. We have developed a visual tool for defining and editing database schemes and for entering images into the database. This tool facilitates data entry, in the mean time enforcing the consistency of the database. keywords: visual data modeling, visual support environment, feature extraction, visual data entry, image interaction, database schemes Part of the work presented here was performed while the first author was a visiting student at Yale University. We further acknowledge the discussions within the Horus team at the Intelligent Sensory Information Systems group