The process of integrating multiple senses and media into computer systems accelerated recently. This has broaden the applications of multimedia from the traditional areas of information organization, presentation and learning, to the new fields of simulation and virtual reality. Applications that have benefited from the introduction of multimedia include: training, demonstration of products for sales or inventory, education, computer-aided design and engineering, medicine, weather, and entertainment.This volume is devoted to the discussion of effective modeling of multimedia information and systems for a wide range of applications. It is perhaps the only book that devotes entirely to this important but much neglected topic.

The purpose of the MMM series of conferences is to bring together activities related to all aspects of multimedia modeling, in its broader sense, from multimedia networking to virtual worlds. Its ultimate goal is to provide a better understanding of the basic paradigms and to establish conceptual links between them for better design of future advanced multimedia systems. The proceedings of MMM '96 present the state-of-the-art in the representation, processing, interaction, integration and retrieval of multimedia information.

The world is inherently complex and multimedia in nature. The development of computer systems to tackle real-world problems is an extremely difficult task. As computers capable of manipulating multimedia information are becoming more powerful and commonplace, larger and more complex systems are increasingly being built. To fully comprehend the complexity of such undertakings, proper modeling of multimedia information and systems must be carried out.A model provides a high-level abstraction of the system in which the implementation is based upon. It permits the desirable properties of the system to be extracted and analyzed and also provides a uniform framework for integration between different systems, and for interactions between the system and human users.This volume is devoted to the discussion of effective modeling of multimedia information and systems for a wide range of applications. It aims to provide common modeling frameworks for the integration of the diverse subjects in the field of multimedia information.