Preface

This guide describes how to use Oracle interMedia ("interMedia"), which ships with Oracle Database.

For information about Oracle Database and the latest features and options that are available to you, see Oracle Database New Features.

Audience

This guide is for application developers and database administrators who are interested in storing, retrieving, and manipulating audio, image, and video data in Oracle Database, including developers of audio, image, and video specialization options. Before using this reference, you should familiarize yourself with the concepts presented in Oracle interMedia User's Guide.

If you are interested in only one particular object type, see Chapter 1 for general introductory information, then, for a description of the methods that are common for all object types, see Chapter 2.

If, for example, you are interested in the ORDImage object type, see Chapter 5, the ORDImage reference chapter for a description of the image-specific methods. For a description of using the relational interface with images, see Chapter 8.

For information about supported image content and compression formats, see Appendix B. For information about using image processing methods, see Appendix D. Finally, for information about the raw pixel image format, see Appendix E.

Documentation Accessibility

Our goal is to make Oracle products, services, and supporting documentation accessible, with good usability, to the disabled community. To that end, our documentation includes features that make information available to users of assistive technology. This documentation is available in HTML format, and contains markup to facilitate access by the disabled community. Accessibility standards will continue to evolve over time, and Oracle is actively engaged with other market-leading technology vendors to address technical obstacles so that our documentation can be accessible to all of our customers. For more information, visit the Oracle Accessibility Program Web site at

http://www.oracle.com/accessibility/

Accessibility of Code Examples in Documentation

Screen readers may not always correctly read the code examples in this document. The conventions for writing code require that closing braces should appear on an otherwise empty line; however, some screen readers may not always read a line of text that consists solely of a bracket or brace.

Accessibility of Links to External Web Sites in Documentation

This documentation may contain links to Web sites of other companies or organizations that Oracle does not own or control. Oracle neither evaluates nor makes any representations regarding the accessibility of these Web sites.

TTY Access to Oracle Support Services

Oracle provides dedicated Text Telephone (TTY) access to Oracle Support Services within the United States of America 24 hours a day, seven days a week. For TTY support, call 800.446.2398.

Related Documents

Note:

For information added after the release of this guide, refer to the online README.txt file under your <ORACLE_HOME> directory. Depending on your operating system, this file may be in:

<ORACLE_HOME>/ord/im/admin/README.txt

Please see your operating system-specific installation guide for more information.

For more information about using interMedia in a development environment, see the following documents in the Oracle Database software documentation set:

Oracle error message documentation is available in HTML only. If you have access to the Oracle Database 10g Release 2 (10.2) Online Documentation Library only, you can browse the error messages by range. Once you find the specific range, use your browser's "find in page" feature to locate the specific message.When connected to the Internet, you can search for a specific error message using the error message search feature of the Oracle online documentation.

For information about Oracle Locator, see Oracle Spatial User's Guide and Reference.

For more information about using XML, see Oracle XML DB Developer's Guide.

For reference information on both Oracle interMedia Java Classes and Oracle interMedia Java Classes for Servlets and JSP in Javadoc format, see the following Oracle API documentation (also known as Javadoc): Oracle interMedia Java Classes API Reference and Oracle interMedia Java Classes for Servlets and JSP API Reference. The API documentation is available in the Oracle Database Online Documentation Library and also from the documentation section of the Oracle Technology Network (OTN) Web site at

http://www.oracle.com/technology/documentation/

For information about using Oracle Application Server 10g Multimedia Tag Library for JSP, see Oracle Application Server 10g Multimedia Tag Library for JSP User's Guide and Reference in the Oracle Application Server 10g Online Documentation Library.

For more information about Java, see the API documentation provided by Sun Microsystems at

http://java.sun.com/docs

For more information about the Java Advanced Imaging (JAI) API, see the following Web site (which is maintained by Sun Microsystems)

http://java.sun.com/products/java-media/jai/index.html

Many of the examples in this book use the sample schemas, which are installed by default when you install Oracle. Refer to Oracle Database Sample Schemas for information about how these schemas were created and how you can use them yourself.

Printed documentation is available for sale in the Oracle Store at

http://oraclestore.oracle.com/

To download free release notes, installation documentation, white papers, or other collateral, please visit the Oracle Technology Network (OTN). You must register online before using OTN; registration is free and can be done at

http://www.oracle.com/technology/membership/

If you already have a user name and password for OTN, then you can go directly to the documentation section of the OTN Web site at

http://www.oracle.com/technology/documentation/

Conventions

In this guide, Oracle interMedia is sometimes referred to as interMedia.

In examples, an implied carriage return occurs at the end of each line, unless otherwise noted. You must press the Return key at the end of a line of input.

Although Boolean is a proper noun, it is presented as boolean in this guide when its use in Java code requires case-sensitivity.

The following conventions are also used in this guide:

Convention	Meaning
. . .	Vertical ellipsis points in an example mean that information not directly related to the example has been omitted.
. . .	Horizontal ellipsis points in statements or commands mean that parts of the statement or command not directly related to the example have been omitted.
boldface text	Boldface text indicates a term defined in the text.
italic text	Italic text is used for emphasis, book titles, variable names, and user-supplied information.
< >	Angle brackets enclose user-supplied names.
[ ]	Brackets enclose optional clauses from which you can choose one or none.

Changes to This Guide

The following substantive changes have been made to this guide since release 10.1:

Added new Metadata and DICOM methods in Chapter 5 and Chapter 8.
Added new DICOM image and file compression formats in Appendix B.
Added new Metadata and DICOM schemas in Appendix F.
Added new DICOM encoding rules in Appendix I.
Added new audio data formats, and revised specified data formats in Appendix A.
Added new video data formats, and revised specified data formats in Appendix C.
Added cross-references to appropriate exceptions throughout the book.
Added the previously missing exception NULL_SOURCE for specified methods throughout the book.
Removed outdated material about products, features, methods, and exceptions that Oracle interMedia no longer supports.
Revised material as needed to reflect minor bug fixes and ongoing improvements.