Storing user experiences in mixed reality using hypermedia

This paper describes HyperMem, a system to store and replay user experiences in mixed environments. The experience is stored as a set of hypermedia nodes and links, with the information that was displayed along with the video of the real world that was navigated. It uses a generic hypermedia model, implemented as software components, to handle mixed reality environments. This model includes components for storing and replaying experiences and integrating them in the overall set of hypermedia graphs that can be accessed by a given user. The paper presents the goals of the system, the underlying hypermedia model, the application scenarios, and the architecture and tools for replaying and repurposing stored information.     

The development of a sound viewer for an open hypermedia system

Abstract

While rich support for a wide variety of media such as text, video and image is common among contemporary hypermedia systems, so too is the inadequate support for audio. The primary reason that audio has not attracted as much attention as other media can be attributed to its obvious lack of visual identity. The main focus of this work was to identify a generic and meaningful visual representation of audio within a hypermedia context, and significantly promote hypermedia support for audio through the provision of a sound viewer.

This paper describes the inherent difficulties in providing a consistent interface to audio, and discusses in some depth the issues raised during the development process. The sound viewer is then introduced and the associated concepts described. The creation and traversal of links to and from audio are facilitated by the sound viewer across formats including WAV (proprietary digital sound file format from Microsoft), CD (Compact Disc) Audio and MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface). The resultant viewer provides a unified and extensible framework for interacting with audio from within an open hypermedia environment. The open hypermedia system Microcosm was used as the development platform for this work. Microcosm can be augmented to supply a hypermedia link service to additional media with minimal overhead.     

Content-based navigation of music using melodic pitch contours

We describe a system which supports dynamic user interaction with multimedia information using content-based hypermedia navigation techniques, specialising in a technique for navigation of musical content. The model combines the principles of open hypermedia, whereby hypermedia link information is maintained by a link service, with content-based retrieval techniques in which a database is queried based on a feature of the multimedia content; our approach could be described as ‘content-based retrieval of hypermedia links’. The experimental system focuses on temporal media and consists of a set of component-based navigational hypermedia tools. We propose the use of melodic pitch contours in this context and we present techniques for storing and querying contours, together with experimental results. Techniques for integrating the contour database with open hypermedia systems are also discussed.     

分布开放超媒体系统DOHMS中的链接机制

本文给出了一个做为分布式开发超媒体系统的ＤＯＨＭＳ核心的链接机制的设计思想和模型,其中包括链与数据分离、等内容。     

Integrating temporal media and open hypermedia on the World Wide Web

The World Wide Web has since its beginning provided linking to and from text documents encoded in HTML. The Web has evolved and most Web browsers now support a rich set of media types either by default or by the use of specialised content handlers, known as plug-ins. The limitations of the Web linking model are well known and they also extend into the realm of the other media types currently supported by Web browsers. This paper introduces the Mimicry system that allows authors and readers to link to and from temporal media (video and audio) on the Web. The system is integrated with the Arakne Environment, an open hypermedia integration aimed at Web augmentation. The links created are stored externally, allowing for links to and from resources not owned by the (link) author. Based on the experiences a critique is raised of the limited APIs supported by plug-ins.     

Open and Reconfigurable Hypermedia Systems: A Filter-Based Model

The need for open hypermedia systems has been well-argued by various authors. In this paper we discuss the Microcosm model for open hypermedia and show how filters have been used to extend this model both for greater efficiency and to make it totally reconfigurable. This enables users to tailor the functionality of the system to meet their own requirements, for example to select different sets of links, or to add navigation tools. The implementation of a management system for filters is described, and examples of how it has been used to extend the functionality of the model are presented, in particular the use of filters to design and implement a set of navigation tools for Microcosm. This latter case study demonstrates the power and flexibility of the filter-based model since all navigation tools for the system can be implemented as filters. The filter technology is discussed in the context of Microcosm but can be generalised to other hypermedia systems.     

Hypermedia systems without links

Although there is no universally accepted definition of what a hypermedia system really is, most hypermedia specialists seem to agree on one basic issue. A hypermedia system contains some pieces of information (often called nodes or chunks) that are tied together by links. Links in fact have almost become a defining characteristic of hypermedia.In this paper we contend that the importance of links has been grossly exaggerated. Hypermedia systems in which links play only a limited role are quite conceivable. Indeed, many burning issues in current day hypermedia systems can be better resolved if other navigational techniques are used. We believe that the emphasis on links has caused a rather myopic view of hypermedia systems. A serious re-evaluation of the extent to which links are beneficial is important. This fact has been previously observed by others, the earliest being Van Dam's keynote address at 'Hypertext'87'. In this paper we propose a first significant step in using structure to replace links.     

Interactive hypermedia applications: A model and its implementation

By referring to the object-oriented efforts of the Multimedia and Hypermedia information coding Expert Group (MHEG), and the augmented Petri net model, we present a formal definition of the multimedia hypermedia Petri net (MHPN) model. Through this proposed model, issues of authoring, rendering and synchronization of multimedia information (i.e. structure authoring, spatial temporal relationships, user interaction, etc.) can all be laid to rest. We have implemented a testbed system, the Petri net object information system (POIS), which offers considerable potential for the development of distributed hypermedia applications. The testbed has been implemented on an IBM-PC486 under Windows 3.1. We are now in the process of porting the testbed model to Windows NT.     

CAI中的智能超媒体技术研究

将智能化行为引入到超媒体系统中,在超媒体的链和结点中嵌入知识或规则,允许链进行计算和推理,使链具有动态跟踪与动态引导功能,使得媒体信息具有更丰富的表现特性,这是智能超媒体的主要研究的内容。文章探讨了智能超媒体的相关实现技术,建立了ＣＡＩ领域的相关知识与推理模型,设计与实现了网上多媒体ＣＡＩ系统中的智能超媒体功能。     

Automating Hypermedia for Decision Support

Many ‘first generation’ hypermedia systems were designed to support applications, which do not require the dynamic and general characteristics necessary for our domain --- decision support systems (DSS). The heart of our research is a dynamic model of hypermedia incorporating virtual structures and computation, which we call generalized hypermedia. Generalized hypermedia broadens and automates the ‘static’ or non-virtual notion of first generation hypermedia for a knowledge-based DSS shell. The shell provides a hypermedia-style interface for navigating among DSS application models, data and reports. Such a shell should support applications in a variety of fields, e.g., engineering, manufacturing, finance, and therefore must provide hypermedia support as general, system-level functionality Generalized hypermedia superimposes a hypermedia network on a DSS application, generating all hypermedia nodes, links and link markers dynamically from the application's standard, non-hypermedia knowledge base. In this paper we demonstrate how automating hypermedia can enhance decision making with a DSS. We describe generalized hypermedia and discuss the challenges presented to it by a dynamic, real-time environment.     

基于面向对象技术的多媒体开发工具YH－MMDT

ＹＨ－ＭＭＤＴ（ＭｕｌｔｉＭｅｄｉａＤｅｖｅｌｏｐｍｅｎｔＴｏｏｌｋｉｔ）是针对多媒体作品的特点，并基于面向对象技术而设计的一个多媒体开发工具包。我们提出了一个新的多媒体作品管理模型ＷＮＣＨ，该模型以作者／读者辩证统一的观点为基本观点，以结点对象为基本信息单位，以内容对象处理多媒体信息，以热区对象处理超链接功能，进而形成了一组完整的多媒体开发工具。本文首先分析了多媒体作品的特点，然后介绍了ＹＨ－ＭＭＤＴ的体系结构，并详细描述了超媒体作品管理模型ＷＮＣＨ，最后讨论了ＹＨ－ＭＭＤＴ系统的主要管理功能（如创作、阅读、导航等）和技术。     

Designing hypermedia information retrieval systems for multimedia art catalogues

Abstract

Multimedia art catalogues present a number of recurring characteristics in both the type of data and the users involved, and in the type of operations required. Typical data include textual catalogue cards manageable through an information retrieval system (IRS), as well as textual captions, images, video, and speech, organizable as a hypermedia network. In this paper we propose a model for the design of these applications, and discuss its effectiveness in improving the quality of the application. The model exploits a multi-level design approach to organize data and access structures of the IRS, while the Entity-Relationship (E-R) approach, tailored to model hypermedia applications, is adopted to describe the structure of the documents and their links.     

基于开放式标准化思想的CIMS信息集成方法

论述CIMS的基于集成、开放、标准化和并行工程思想的信息集成方法.即应用STEP、 EXPRESS、SGML、HyTime、X Windows、UNIX等国际标准或主流工业标准,依托面向对 象工程数据库,开发一个开放式的由软件工具和超媒体界面组成的支持环境,实现CIMS信息 的数字化交换、共享、集成,支持并行工程思想.     

Toward support for hypermedia on the World Wide Web

As organizations rush to embrace the World Wide Web as their primary application infrastructure, they should not bypass the benefit of hypermedia support. The Web's infrastructure can serve as an interface to all interactive applications and, over time, will become the graphical user interface model for new applications. Ubiquitous hypermedia support should become the jewel of the Web environment. Through Web integration, hypermedia could become an integral part of every interactive application. With the proper tools to support hypermedia in Web application development, it will become second nature for developers and individual authors to provide supplemental links and hypermedia navigation. However, as organizations adopt the Web as their primary application infrastructure, designers may use Java and other tools to recreate current application functionality, and not take advantage of the Web's hypermedia-augmented infrastructure. If users, designers, MIS departments and organizations don't demand hypermedia support, hypermedia may get lost in the frenzy of Web integration     

HADT: Hypermedia application development tool for tourist applications

This paper describes an authoring tool prototype design for the development of hypermedia applications. The system is based on a generic object oriented data model suitable for hypermedia, that has been designed and implemented in our department. The model is extensible for integrated multimedia manipulation and provides an enhanced linking system. The design aims at a general purpose hypermedia application development tool which may well be used for the development of tourist applications. It is of special interest in the Greek tourist market since tourism contributes considerably to the national income of Greece. Current technology provides the hardware for manipulation of multimedia information and increases the quantity and quality of information flow between the user and the machine. Thus in a travel agency environment it would be desirable to have an interactive multimedia demonstration helping the user find places of interest in any context (physical beauty, archaeological interest, tourist infrastructure, possible itineraries etc.). Such a tool would be very effective compared with the static presentation of brochures. HADT has the potential to fulfil these needs when it is developed, and in this paper we explore such possibilities. Furthermore, research directions for future work are discussed.     

Supporting Composition in a Hypermedia Environment

This paper introduces HCOMET, a composition editor developed to facilitate writing in a hypermedia environment. HCOMET provides an environment for on-line capture and manipulation of ‘thoughts and ideas’ in a multi dimensional and multimedia manner. Composition as a mechanism for structuring and organization of information (to supplement the basic node and link model) is considered an important issue in the future generation of hypermedia systems. This paper discusses the basic issues in supporting composition, and describes the design and implementation of HCOMET. The use of HCOMET in application development is also discussed.     

Methods and techniques of adaptive hypermedia

Adaptive hypermedia is a new direction of research within the area of adaptive and user model-based interfaces. Adaptive hypermedia (AH) systems build a model of the individual user and apply it for adaptation to that user, for example, to adapt the content of a hypermedia page to the user's knowledge and goals, or to suggest the most relevant links to follow. AH systems are used now in several application areas where the hyperspace is reasonably large and where a hypermedia application is expected to be used by individuals with different goals, knowledge and backgrounds. This paper is a review of existing work on adaptive hypermedia. The paper is centered around a set of identified methods and techniques of AH. It introduces several dimensions of classification of AH systems, methods and techniques and describes the most important of them.     

Engineering the Design of Usable Hypermedia

This paper presents a systematic method for designing hypermedia that are easy to use for various types of users, along with its application to a specific case study. The design phase is supported by the use of task models. We have identified criteria that indicate how information in task models can be used to identify links, design presentations, and structure the data of the hypermedia considered. Different types of users imply different task models and thus different hypermedia designs. We then show how the design obtained was evaluated using both empirical testing and metrics for hypermedia navigation. We discuss the results obtained by these two evaluation methods and how they affected the original design.     

Open hypermedia as user controlled meta data for the Web

This paper introduces an approach to utilise open hypermedia structures such as links, annotations, collections and guided tours as meta data for Web resources. The paper introduces an XML based data format, called Open Hypermedia Interchange Format, OHIF, for such hypermedia structures. OHIF resembles XLink with respect to its representation of out-of-line links, but it goes beyond XLink with a more rich set of structuring mechanisms, including e.g. composites. Moreover OHIF includes an addressing mechanisms (LocSpecs) that goes beyond XPointer and URL in its ability to locate non-XML data segments. By means of the Webvise system, OHIF structures can be authored, imposed on Web pages, and finally linked on the Web as any ordinary Web resource. Following a link to an OHIF file automatically invokes a Webvise download of the meta data structures and the annotated Web content will be displayed in the browser. Moreover, the Webvise system provides support for users to create, manipulate, and share the OHIF structures together with custom made Web pages and MS Office 2000 documents on WebDAV servers. These Webvise facilities goes beyond earlier open hypermedia systems in that it now allows fully distributed open hypermedia linking between Web pages and WebDAV aware desktop applications. The paper describes the OHIF format and demonstrates how the Webvise system handles OHIF. Finally, it argues for better support for handling user controlled meta data, e.g. support for linking in non-XML data, integration of external linking in the Web infrastructure, and collaboration support for external structures and meta-data.     

A User-Configurable Hypermedia-Based Interface Via the Functional Model of the Link

Hypermedia management systems often make use of database management systems for the persistent storage of links and of the linked information components. In this paper, we argue that a hypermedia management system with its support for reader-directed navigation provides an attractive type of database system interface in that it facilitates ease of database access or more specifically, of locating (‘discovering’) relevant information.

Furthermore, our approach to hypermedia management, based on the Functional Model of the link, provides for extensive user-configurability of that interface. This configurability particularly applies to fully dynamic links, which free the user from much of the link creation and maintenance duties.

A prototype system incorporating this approach is overviewed in this paper.