Use and Reuse of Indexing and Retrieval Functionality in a Multimedia IR Framework

We are working towards a reusable IR framework designed to facilitate the development of multimedia IR applications and to support the experimental evaluation of indexing and retrieval techniques. We recently have been reviewing and refining the design and implementation of the framework in order to improve its ease of use and reusability. Our particular goals have been that the framework should make transparent which IR functionality is available for information units of a certain type; particular functionality should be selectable as default either for a whole application or an individual IR database and/or user; users of the framework should be able to invoke specific functionality at run-time. In this paper, we discuss in detail the (re-)use of IR functionality in our framework. First, we sketch how indexing and retrieval are organized in the framework; subsequently, we focus on the above issues.