digital image utilization management system. These tools 
do exist, since with respect to a certain line besides of 
access to single BCL-records PODIUM provides by means of 
super-records access to 
- single CL-records (auxiliary channels), 
- the complete set of BCL- and CL-records, 
- single L-records, 
- single BL-records, 
- the complete set of BL- and L-records, 
- the complete set of BL-, L-, BCL- and CL-records. 
6. Image segmentation 
  
With regard to PODIUM the technical term image segmen- 
tation has to be used in its widest sense since each 
particular program referencing PODIUM does determine its 
meaning while PODIUM itself only providing appropriate 
tools which may be used for instance upon 
- image recognition, e.g. /7/ 
- clustering, histogramming, 
- region growing, 
- relaxation, 
- image matching, 
- Shape detection, 
- annotating non-glabally, 
- computer graphics, e.g. 
- .Surveying, 
- establishing thematic maps. 
Given a certain DAI, an arbitrary number of segments, 
called windows, may be defined in the shape of polygons 
/5/. The windows may arbitrarily overlap. Horeover, 
there may be sub-windows also in the shape of polygons 
excluding pixels from a window thereby allowing large non- 
simply connected areas to be referenced by means of a 
single window name and processed as if they were homo- 
geneous. As a consequence of this, windows may arbitrarily 
be nested. 
A reference to pixels in connection with the shape of a 
window requires the window's pixels to be appropriately 
labelled in a pattern channel while otherwise there is 
no need for a pattern channel. Appropriate labelling 
and referencing algorithms have been presented in /4/. 
These are somewhat complicated since the number of 
different labels which can be used in a pattern channel 
is always limited by a rather small integer but one 
wants to have the ability of defining an arbitrary number