A CONSTRAINT-DRIVEN APPROACH TO AUTOMATE THE ORGANIZATION AND PLAYOUTOF PRESENTATIONS IN MULTIMEDIA DATABASES

We introduce a constraint-driven methodology for the automated assembl y, organization and playout of presentations from multimedia databases . We use inclusion and exclusion constraints for extracting a semantic ally coherent set of multimedia segments. Presentation organization co nstraints are utilized for organizing the multimedia segments into a p resentation, which in turn helps decide the playout order of the extra cted multimedia segments. The playout order of the segments is represe nted in a presentation graph. If the specified set of organization con straints are not sufficient to construct a unique presentation graph, we propose two techniques so that a unique graph is constructible. We also propose two playout algorithms, one for the generation, start and termination of playout agents, the other for dynamic control of playo ut management on organized presentations. The characteristics of these algorithms are expressed in terms of presentation playout parameters.