An Interpolated Volume Model for Databases

In this paper we present a volume data model amenable to querying volumes in databases. Unlike most existing volume models, which are directed towards specific applications (notably, volume displaying) and are therefore directed towards executing with the greatest possible efficiency a small set of operations, we are interested in defining a volume algebra through which generic query conditions can be composed. We argue that a general volume model should have two characteristics: (1) it should consider volumes as first class data types that can be returned as results of queries, and (2) it should model volumes as continua, hiding the discrete nature of the measurements inside the representation.