... Standardized and scalable descriptions of image metadata will be required to enable dataset browsing, selection and visualization. ... Here we provide a very brief outline of the image metadata description that forms the basis of this data access scheme, and show how the data tree is used in the AVO prototype to enable "smart browsing" and selection of data. 1 2 http://www.euro-vo.org http://www.ivoa.net/twiki/bin/view/IVOA/IvoaVOTable 261 c Copyright 2004 Astronomical Society of the Pacific. ...