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Overview

Multimodal Table extends the Append Table with capabilities for storing and querying multimodal data — images, videos, audio, vectors, and full-text content — all within a single table. It is built on top of the Data Evolution mode, which enables efficient partial column updates and schema evolution without rewriting entire data files.

Key capabilities:

  • Data Evolution: Update partial columns without rewriting entire files, enabling efficient schema evolution.
  • Variant Storage: Store and query schema-flexible semi-structured data with optional typed sub-column shredding.
  • Blob Storage: Store large binary objects (images, videos, audio) in dedicated .blob files with efficient column projection.
  • Vector Storage: Store and manage vector embeddings in dedicated Vortex-format files optimized for vector workloads.
  • Global Index: Build BTree, Bitmap, vector, and full-text indexes for efficient lookups and similarity search.

Data Evolution, Blob Storage, Vector Storage, and Global Index require the following table properties. Variant Storage can also be used in a regular Paimon table without these properties:

'row-tracking.enabled' = 'true',
'data-evolution.enabled' = 'true'