The integrated data analysis and management system for pictorial applications

Abstract

IDAMS is a prototype of a general purpose system for interactive data manipulation. The paper analyzes the requirements for an interactive pictorial data base system and shows that the known requirements for pictorial application can best be met by a general purpose system such as IDAMS. Major features of IDAMS are: the powerful high level data manipulation language.the datatypes of APL plus extensions for interactive data analysis.the convenient extensibility of the system by functions written in FORTRAN, PL/I or ASSEMBLY language.the interactive extensibility via APL, both within and in addition to the data manipulation language.the convenient access to special purpose hardware including image processing devices. The ease, with which the general purpose system can be adapted to a pictorial application, is contrasted with the problems and risks introduced by the development of a special purpose data base system for pictorial applications.