An Extensible Platform for Semantic Classification And Retrieval of Multimedia Resources

This paper introduces a possible solution to the problem of semantic indexing, searching and retrieving heterogeneous resources, from textual as in most of modern search engines, to multimedia. The idea of “anchor” as information unit is here introduced to view resources from different perspectives and to access existing resources and metadata archives. Moreover, the platform uses an ontology as a conceptual representation of a well-defined domain in order to semantically classify and retrieve anchors (and the related resources). Specifically, the architecture of the proposed platform aims at being as modular and easily extensible as possible, in order to permit the inclusion of state-of-the-art techniques for the classification and retrieval of multimedia resources. Eventually, the adoption of Web Services as interface technology facilitates the exposition of the semantic functionalities and of content management to web application designers and users without any additional overload on the content creation and maintenance workflow.