Videodisc and visual databases

Abstract Most database systems deal simply with textual or alphanumeric material. The usefulness of such systems either for random or structured access is undoubted. However, many people such as designers, librarians, historians, archaeologists and so on, also need access to large amounts of visual data in the form of photographs, diagrams, drawings or facsimiles of documents, Until comparatively recently it has not been possible to store and access such material electronically. The advent of the computer-controlled videodisc has changed the picture to a degree that now makes it feasible to envisage visual information systems of encyclopaedic proportions. For some years at System Simulation Ltd, we have been using a database interfaced to a videodisc system containing nearly 54,000 images of works of art and architecture in order to experiment with ways of providing designers with virtually instantaneous access to visual information. This article introduces some of the principles involved in producing such interactive systems.