Distributed Multimedia Information Systems

Many organizations addressing grand challenge problems, such as those defined by earth sciences, require the integration of both physical and human resource databases in an interactive manner. Such a capability allows reasonably informed policy analysts to query an ``environmental science workstation'' so as to better understand how human uses impact our natural resource base. This project involves a prototype software tool that supports access to and understanding of diverse environmental information. The tool, ENFORMS (Environmental Information System) is currently being developed for use in a regional watershed analysis project. ENFORMS consists of two general components: an object-oriented archive of multimedia information objects and a querying facility to search the archive for relevant information. The archive can be populated with a variety of different types of information, including documents, satellite imagery, aerial photographs, tabular data, color-coded charts, maps, and illustrative animations. The archive component also supports data integration activities using tools such as a geographical information system (GIS) and environmental models.

Recent Papers

Project Reports

  • Design Document for 1993 Knowledge Transfer Prototype Regional Information System for US/Mexico Border" (ENFORMS) (Also available as Michigan State University, Department of Computer Science Technical Report, MSU-CSE-94-37, July 1994).
  • A Requirements Analysis Report for a Regional Decision Support System EPA Cooperative Agreement: Task 4.6 (Also available as Michigan State University, Department of Computer Science Technical Report, MSU-CSE-94-70, November 1994).
  • Design Document for ENFORMS II: Decision Support System for Great Lakes Regional Envornmental Information System (Also available as Michigan State University, Department of Computer Science Technical Report, MSU-CSE-95-24, May 1995).
  • HTML Documents