This is the public page of the Data Types, Formats and Attributes (MPA-TFA) standard. See the MPAI-TFA homepage.
MPAI standardisation focuses on Data either exchanged by AI Modules or received as input and provided as output by AI Workflows. MPAI scope covers different Data Types – Audio, Visual, Speech, Text, etc. In many cases, proper use of a Data Type instance by an AI Module requires additional information. For example, it may be necessary to specify that the Sub-Type of an Audio Data Type instance is single- or multi-channel, the Data Format of a Speech Object is represented in an AAC format and stored in an MP4 file, and an Attribute of a picture includes the ID(s) of the human(s) in that Visual Object.
The Sub-Type, the Format, and the Attributes of a Data Type instance is called the “Qualifier” and Technical Specification: Data Types, Formats and Attributes (MPAI-TFA) V1.0 specifies the Qualifiers of the Data Types referenced in the MPAI Technical Specifications.
Qualifiers are human-readable but intended for machine use and they do not support information that is not expected to be used by a machine. Some elements of Qualifiers are expected to be permanent, but other elements may change or are added to respond to application needs. Therefore, versioning of Qualifiers is a critical component of MPAI-TFA.
MPAI standardisation focuses on Data either exchanged by AI Modules or received as input and provided as output by AI Workflows. MPAI scope covers different Data Types – Audio, Visual, Speech, Text, etc. In many cases, proper use of a Data Type instance by an AI Module requires additional information. For example, it may be necessary to specify that the Sub-Type of an Audio Data Type instance is single- or multi-channel, the Data Format of a Speech Object is represented in an AAC format and stored in an MP4 file, and an Attribute of a picture includes the ID(s) of the human(s) in that Visual Object.
The Sub-Type, the Format, and the Attributes of a Data Type instance is called the “Qualifier” and Technical Specification: Data Types, Formats and Attributes (MPAI-TFA) V1.0 specifies the Qualifiers of the Data Types referenced in the MPAI Technical Specifications.
Qualifiers are human-readable but intended for machine use and they do not support information that is not expected to be used by a machine. Some elements of Qualifiers are expected to be permanent, but other elements may change or are added to respond to application needs. Therefore, versioning of Qualifiers is a critical component of MPAI-TFA.
A simple example of what is being prepared is given by the following table specifying the Qualifier of the Text Object. Please note that this is a a snapshot of work in progress.
| 1. | Sub-Types | The Text Data Type does not have Sub-Types. |
| 2. | Format | |
| 2.1. | Static | 1. ASCII 2. Unicode: ISO/IEC10646 |
| 2.2 | Dynamic | 1. TimedTextML 2. WebVTT |
| 3. | Attributes | |
| 3.1. | Language | 1. ISO 639-3 |
Successive versions of MPAI-TFA may extend the components of the Qualifier of a Data Type bases on user requirements.
