Workshop on Visual Database Systems for the Marine Sciences,San Francisco, California

建议举办一个研讨会，探讨可视化数据库系统在海洋生物学研究中的潜在应用。可视化数据库系统将关系数据库与广泛的视频或图像库连接起来。这种系统可用于构建关于海洋生物及其环境的综合事实和视觉信息的通用资源。这种资源可以支持海洋科学方面的一系列研究、环境评估和教育应用。目前，在与支持海洋研究所需的分类工作有关的视觉信息管理方面存在后勤危机。已经收集了许多视觉信息，但基本上是无法访问的。各种自动化和远程操作车辆收集的金额正在增加。此外，处理现有和新收集的材料变得越来越困难。原型显示可视化数据库系统的技术能力满足海洋科学方面的需要。目前有机会使用可视化数据库系统来处理上述问题。必须就可视数据库系统的特点作出决定，这些特点将产生允许在用户站点之间转移信息的“最佳经济可能格式”、关于发展的优先次序和继续维护的后勤工作。这些系统的潜在用户的投入将使综合资源和工作站交付环境得以发展，以当前和未来的应用标准为指导。

A workshop is proposed to investigate the potential application of visual database systems to research in marine biology. Visual database systems link relational databases with extensive video or image libraries. Such systems can be used to construct a generic resource of combined factual and visual information about marine organisms and about their environments. Such a resource could support a range of research, environmental assessment, and educational applications in the marine sciences. At this time there is a logistics crisis in the management of visual information relating to taxonomic work needed to support marine research. Much visual information has already been collected, but is essentially inaccessible. The amount collected by various automated and remotely operated vehicles is increasing. Furthermore, it is getting increasingly difficult to process existing and new collected material. Prototypes have shown the technical capabilities of visual database systems meet perceived needs in the marine sciences. A window of opportunity currently exists to use visual database systems to deal with the above problems. Decisions have to be made about the visual database system features which will result in the "best conomically possible format" allowing transfer of information between user sites, about the priorities of development, and the logistics of continued maintenance. Input from potential users of such systems will allow development of a comprehensive resource and workstation delivery environment to be guided by immediate and future application criteria.