FORWISS

BAVARIAN RESEARCH CENTER FOR KNOWLEDGE-BASED SYSTEMS

RasDaMan

Field of work:

The research project RasDaMan focuses on comprehensive DBMS support for raster data of arbitrary size and dimension over arbitrary base types, so-called Multidimensional Discrete Data (MDD).

Multidimensional database technology involves DBMS support wrt.
- modelling of arrays with arbitrary size, dimension, and base type;
- a declarative query language suitable for such arrays;
- suitable storage management, including tertiary storage;
- storage and retrieval optimization, in particular wrt. disk access and networks traffic. Two pivotal applications, medical imaging (PACS) and geographic imagery (GIS), serve to determine the exact requirements and to assess the results through prototype application pilots.

Besides, benchmarking of raster DBMS is an issue of research.

Application:
Due to the project´s outstanding success - among others, RasDaMan was chosen as platform for the European Human Brain Database where 3-D human brain data can be queried over the Web - , key developers founded the spin-off company Active Knowledge GmbHin December 1997. In the sequel, the company was awarded a series of high-ranking national and international innovation prizes, such as the prestigious Europen IT Prize, for its unique technology and the commercialization concept.