Handling shape semantics in virtual styling

Multimedia content and 3D models play an important role in many industrial applications. Therefore semantic processing for the purposes of comparing, cataloging and archiving 2D and 3D shapes is a major concern. Existing Konwledge Management systems fail to provide effective solutions for industrial designers and privilege the management of text-based content. In this paper we describe a content retrieval system for the styling department. Our solution provides a platform for creating, managing and retrieving semantic meta-data descriptions of multimedia content and 3D shapes using the MPEG 7 ISO/IEC standard. We further outline the rational for integrating such a solution with a virtual styling system and discuss multimodal approaches for the input of semantic metadata in virtual environments.