Multidimensional discrete data (MDD), i.e., arrays of arbitrary size, dimension, and base type, are receiving growing attention among the database community. MDD occur in a variety of application elds, e.g., technical/scienti c areas such as medical imaging, geographic information systems, climate research, scienti c simulations, and businessoriented applications like OLAP and data mining. In all these application elds the data managed can be modeled as MDD. RasDaMan (Raster Data Management in Databases) is a basic research project sponsored by the European Community where industrial and research partners collaborate to develop comprehensive MDD database technology. In the approach adopted, the logical and physical levels are strictly separated. A data de nition language for multidimensional arrays together with a declarative, optimizable query language allow for powerful associative retrieval. A streamlined storage manager for huge arrays enables fast, e cient access to MDD subsets. ...