MIAOW: An Object Oriented Multimedia DB application on the WWW for the stone market

This paper presents the MIAOW system, a comprehensive information system now available on the Internet. This system acts as the main component in a reorganization of the marble business process aimed at rendering the exchange of information widespread, up-to-date, timely, reliable and cost-effective. It consists of an Illustra DB and a WWW application on top of it. The former stores both technical data and visual characteristics of the stony materials. The latter supports browsing, information retrieval and data storage on the underlying database by offering the most sophisticated functionalities for architects, consultants and suppliers