From satellite images to elementary school textbooks, our everyday life is full of information presented in the form of images. Since so much information is in non-alphanumeric form, as a natural extension of the ideas in databases, researchers started exploring the design and implementation of image databases. The progress in this area requires close interaction among researchers from disparate areas of computer science and other fields. To bring together active researchers in databases, object-oriented systems, image and signal processing, multi- media, and other related areas a workshop will be organized. In addition to the researchers in the above and related areas, a few researchers and practitioners interested in applying these systems in industry, health-care, global change and other areas will be invited. The practitioners will provide input into the discussion to guarantee that useful systems will be designed by researchers and practitioners working in this emerging area. The participants will be drawn from academic institutions, research centers, Government, and industry. The report of the workshop will be submitted to NSF and will be widely publicized. The report will identify major research areas that should be addressed by researchers for designing user-friendly visual information management systems suitable for a wide range of application domains.
