ly 
ds 
on 
on 
yes 
This may be illustrated 
- as well by pointing out that nobody realizes the 
representation of the result of a classification 
procedure and an arbitrary thematic map being logical 
equivalents since both of them consist of pixel- 
oriented annotations determining an image segmentation, 
- as by the common fact that if a program execution's 
input corresponds to the output of a program previously 
executed the data has to be typed or even punched by 
the scientist. 
Deepening these considerations led to the following con- 
clusion: If one wants to efficiently utilize a digital 
image and all the corresponding non-pictorial information 
being available a priori and becoming produced little by 
little then one ought to have powerful tools for 
- image data manipulation, 
- image segmentation, 
- annotating. 
The following sections enter into details, but without 
further explanations the technical term digital image 
utilization management may now be understood as referring 
to the simultaneous availability of these tools upon 
performing digital image analysis. 
3. Direct-access storage equipment and file structure 
  
Direct-access storage units come in many different forms 
each having idiosyncrasies which ought to be studied 
carefully before major programs are written for it /3/. 
At first sight this statement seems to be in contradiction 
with the fourth and fifth objective specified in the 
introduction above. 
Furthermore as a consequence of this and because of 
different data file philosophies due to various operating 
systems the technical term file is not unique though 
everybody uses it. 
To circumvent all these problems, PODIUM presumes the 
following conditions: A direct-access storage file is an 
ordered set of hard sectors on direct-access storage where 
each hard sector may be uniquely referenced by means of a 
quadrupel of absolute channel,unit, cylinder and hard 
sector addresses. A hard sector consists of consecutive 
Storage space within a certain track and its capacity is 
an integral multiple of a soft sector. A soft sector, 
also for short referred toas sector, may be thought of