The purpose of image processing systems is to extract information from image data. Systems which are designed to treat large numbers of images must also be able to analyse the data extracted from the images. The standard Database Management Systems (DBMS) provide many of the facilities needed; however, some of the desired interactive graphics, statistics, and mathematics are not always available. Therefore, a dedicated table system has been made to serve these purposes in MIDAS (Grosbø l and Ponz, 1985, Mem.S.A.It., 56, 429).
The use of tables can be divided into three main categories: internal, external, and user applications. One of the advantages of the MIDAS Table System (MTS) is that tables for these different purposes have the same structure and can be treated with the same set of routines. The three categories are discussed separately, although there is some overlap in the applications.
