Automatic authoring and construction of hypermedia for information retrieval

This paper describes the complete process and a tool for the automatic construction of a multimedia hypertext starting from a large collection of multimedia documents. Through the use of an authoring methodology, the document collection is automatically authored, and the result is a multimedia hypertext, also called a hypermedia, written in hypertext mark-up language (HTML), almost a standard among hypermedia mark-up languages. The resulting hypermedia can be browsed and queried with Mosaic, an interface developed in the framework of the World Wide Web Project. In particular, the set of methods and techniques used for the automatic construction of hypermedia is described in this paper, and their relevance in the context of multimedia information retrieval is highlighted.     

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.     

Modeling, authoring and formatting hypermedia documents in the HyperProp system

This paper discusses multimedia and hypermedia modeling, authoring and formatting tools, presenting the proposals of the HyperProp system and comparing them to related work. It also highlights several research challenges that still need to be addressed. Moreover, it stresses the importance of document logical structuring and considers the use of compositions in order to represent context relations, synchronization relations, derivation relations and task relations in hypermedia systems. It discusses temporal and spatial synchronization among multimedia objects and briefly presents the HyperProp graphical authoring and formatting tools. Integration between the proposed system and the WWW is also addressed.     

VRMosaic: Web access from within a virtual environment

For the foreseeable future, users of virtual reality systems will likely spend more time in the “real” environment than in a virtual environment. In the “real” environment, users access much of their data using flat screen applications, which include tools such as authoring and analysis programs and even hyperlinked browsers. We believe that users will find VEs more appealing if they can import their flat screen applications. We also believe that the World Wide Web infrastructure, and supporting tools such as NCSA Mosaic, Netscape's Navigator, and Sun's HotJava, have become a de facto standard both for making data available and allowing limited interaction with that data. These beliefs motivated us to develop a technology for porting flat screen applications based on the 3.1 version of the InterViews toolkit into VR. NCSA Mosaic provided us with a real application that would: (1) test our infrastructure effectively; and (2) provide a compelling application example. We used our “2D interface in VR” infrastructure to port Mosaic into RealEyes, our VR system. Dubbed “VRMosaic”, this application lets users familiar with Mosaic access the Web from within an immersive VE. But VRMosaic is not just an embedded version of NCSA Mosaic-it also allows for VR specific features such as navigation within the VE     

Combining Gprof and Event-Driven Monitoring for Analyzing Distributed Programs:A Rough View of NCSA Mosaic

There are several purposes of analyzing a program:functional or performance analysis,debugging or,more recently,mapping a program to a new paraller or distributed architecture.In this paper,we introduce an effective method leading to the Execution Graph (EG)from a program.First,the Unix profiling tool Gprof is used to get the Execution Model(EM)of a C-program.Then the event-driven monitoring tool AICOS-SIMPLE is used to get the EG which includes not only the call graph but also the execution time table of the program.This method is suitable for analyzing modern distributed programs.As the example of the analysis,the well known HTTP protocol under the NCSA Mosaic is chosen.Ae EG of NCSA Mosaic on the routing level is given.     

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.     

WWW环境下超媒体协同创作系统的设计

1 引言大型文献的创作是一种涉及到总编、美术、策划以及多个作者之间的协作活动,超媒体技术的出现为大型文献创作者提供了一种新的创作方式,能够很好地支持这种协作活动。常规文献是连续的线性结构,文献在组织结构上没有划分手段,因此协同写作时难以进行分工。超媒体文献的离散化节点和超链组织有利于多人协作时任务的划分,多成员可在分布环境下分担完成文献中的不同部分,通过超链可将各部分链接起来,保持整个文献的完整性。对于读者,超文本技术允许有选择地阅读其中感兴趣的部分,而忽略其他部     

A hypermedia authoring tool for augmented and virtual reality

Most existing hypermedia authoring systems are intended for use on desktop computers. These systems are typically designed for the creation of 2D documents and therefore employ 2D authoring mechanisms. In contrast, authoring systems for nontraditional multimedia/hypermedia experiences for 3D virtual or augmented worlds focus mainly on creating separate media objects and embedding them within the user's surroundings. As a result, linking these media objects to create 3D hypermedia is a tedious manual task. To address this issue, we present an authoring tool for creating and editing linked 3D hypermedia narratives that are interwoven with a wearable computer user's surrounding environment. Our system is designed for use by authors who are not programmers, and allows them to preview their results on a desktop workstation, as well as with an augmented or virtual reality system.     

Using a phenomenographic approach in evaluating hypermedia stories

This paper builds on research into using multimedia and hypermedia as creative writing tools and reports on a study in using a hypermedia authoring program with middle-years students at an Australian secondary school. The study explored a classroom where collaborative work built on the technical facilities and expertise of young people.     

Mosaic and the World Wide Web

The World-Wide Web, an information service on the Internet, uses hypertext links to other textual documents or files. Users can click on a highlighted word or words in the text to provide additional information about the selected word(s). Users can also access graphic pictures, images, audio clips, or even full-motion video through hypermedia, an extension of hypertext. One of the most popular graphics-oriented browsers is Mosaic, which was developed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) as a way to graphically-navigate the WWW. Mosaic browsers are currently available for Unix workstations running X Windows, PCs running Microsoft Windows, and Macintosh computers. Mosaic can access data in WWW servers, Wide Area Information Servers (WAIS), Gopher servers, Archie servers, and several others. The World-Wide Web is still evolving at a rapid pace. Distributed hypermedia systems on the Internet will continue to be an active area of development in the future. The flexibility of the WWW design, its use of hyperlinks, and the integration of existing WAIS and Gopher information resources, make the WWW ideal for future research and study. Highly interactive multimedia applications will require more sophisticated tools than currently exist. The most significant issue that needs to be resolved is the mismatch between WWW system capabilities and user requirements in the areas of presentation and quality of service     

超媒体文档库协作写作系统的数据结构设计

本文主要讨论了一个面向大容量超媒体中文文档库的分布协作写作系统的数据和结构模型设计，着重介绍了分布式文档库、文档目录树、节点和超链链表、多媒体对象、文档检索索引等数据结构和整个超媒体系统的结构模型.     

A framework for automatic semantic video annotation

Hypermedia composite templates define generic structures of nodes and links to be added to a document composition, providing spatio-temporal synchronization semantics. This paper presents EDITEC, a graphical editor for hypermedia composite templates. EDITEC templates are based on the XTemplate 3.0 language. The editor was designed for offering a user-friendly visual approach. It presents a new method that provides several options for representing iteration structures graphically, in order to specify a certain behavior to be applied to a set of generic document components. The editor provides a multi-view environment, giving the user a complete control of the composite template during the authoring process. Composite templates can be used in NCL documents for embedding spatio-temporal semantics into NCL contexts. NCL is the standard declarative language used for the production of interactive applications in the Brazilian digital TV system and ITU H.761 IPTV services. Hypermedia composite templates could also be used in other hypermedia authoring languages offering new types of compositions with predefined semantics.     

Towards A New Authoring Methodology for Large-Scale Hypermedia Applications

As the amount of information technology increases, managing information resources, so that the correct people can find the information easily, becomes a critical issue. Hypermedia systems are considered one solution to this problem as they provide a means for representing higher level relationships between the underlying information. However, the amount of information available electronically is increasing at an accelerated rate. Using standard hypermedia authoring techniques, the effort required managing and maintaining large-scale hypermedia systems is enormous. Hypermedia authoring in the large requires new methodologies if it is going to be feasible.This paper presents a new model for building and structuring large-scale hypermedia applications. It describes a case study that explored the delivery of hypermedia information in an industrial environment on a small scale. Models and techniques developed for that case study were then refined and augmented so they could support the construction of large-scale hypermedia systems. In order to support such endeavors a new linking model is presented that allows the author to explicitly represent abstract concepts contained within the underlying information and interconnect them in some meaningful manner. A prototype system applying this linking technique is presented.     

超媒体模型中时态行为研究

实现超体系统的关键之一是提供对多媒体同步的支持，文中在Ｄｅｘｔｅｒ参考模型的基础，进行了合理的扩充以描述和存储多媒体数据库的时态参数，并 了相应的展示算法。     

协同多媒体菱工具中演示文档的同步模型

多媒体演示文档的协同菱对文档本身的结构与同步模型提出了一定的要求。为了便于面向对象的实现以及灵活多粒度的共享，提出了一个协同多媒体著作工具中分布交互式多媒体文档的同步模型。在此模型中，文档结构分为三层：页面层、对象组层及单媒体对象层，根据各层的特点，其同步分别采用基于跳转、基于事件及基于时间的策略。     

Improving SMIL with NCM Facilities

SMIL is an XML-based language for specifying documents with temporal and spatial synchronization relationships, recommended by the W3C. However, SMIL has some limitations as a hypermedia authoring language. In order to overcome these limitations, this work presents the integration of SMIL documents with HyperProp, a hypermedia system based on an object-oriented model called NCM (Nested Context Model). As benefits, the integration makes both NCM facilities and HyperProp authoring and formatting tools available for SMIL documents. Furthermore, this work presents how the SMIL language can be extended to incorporate NCM facilities through the inclusion of new XML elements and attributes found in NCL, the NCM declarative language. Among the facilities, we can highlight the possibility of reusing document components and their presentation characteristics, offering flexibility in temporal specifications, adapting a document presentation according to user navigation and specifying n-ary relationships expressing causality or constraint among components.     

HM-Card: A new hypermedia authoring system

HM-Card is a novel hypermedia authoring and presentation system for the development and use of a diverse range of hypermedia applications on PCs/MS-Windows. It is the first tool to implement the HM data model, a recent approach to provide a sound theoretical basis for the sophisticated structuring and navigating of hypermedia databases. However, in this paper we only cover the HM data model as the underlying theoretical foundation for the actual authoring system HM-Card. HM-Card offers an extensive set of functional and structural authoring elements, such as animations, question/answer dialogs, transparent import of external documents, and execution of other MS-Windows applications. The user-interface of HM-Card is intended to support rapid prototyping and authoring of complex hypermedia applications. Finished HM-Card applications can be run as stand-alone systems, used in MS-Windows' OLE (Object Linking and Embedding concept) clients, as well as be integrated as modules into large-scale distributed hypermedia systems.     

多媒体对象的组织与结构化检索

多媒体的结构化检索具有广泛的应用前景，但多媒体的检索技术尚不成熟。多媒体数据模型的复杂性，连续媒体基于内容检索的低效，以及缺乏适用的查询语言，都使得多媒体检索困难重重。英国肯特大学新近研制的多媒体检索系统在多媒体检索的相关领域取得了一定的突破。这个系统把用户视图中的多媒体对象组织成具有层次结构的虚拟数据库，使用属性来标识数据库中多媒体对象索引的特征；查询代理机允许用户直观地构造查询过程－包括一个结     

XTemplate 3.0: spatio-temporal semantics and structure reuse for hypermedia compositions

The use of declarative languages in digital TV systems, as well as IPTV systems, facilitates the creation of interactive applications. However, when an application becomes more complex, with many user interactions, for example, the hypermedia document that describes that application becomes bigger, having many lines of XML code. Thus, specification reuse is crucial for an efficient application development process. This paper proposes the XTemplate 3.0 language, which allows the creation of NCL hypermedia composite templates. Templates define generic structures of nodes and links to be added to a document composition, providing spatio-temporal synchronization semantics to it. The use of hypermedia composite templates aims at facilitating the authoring work, allowing the reuse of hypermedia document common specifications. Using composite templates, hypermedia documents become simpler and easier to be created. The 3.0 version of XTemplate adds new facilities to the XTemplate language, such as the possibility of specifying presentation information, the attribution of values to variables and connector parameters during template processing time and the template ability to extend other templates. As an application of XTemplate, this work extends the NCL 3.0 declarative language with XTemplate, adding semantics to NCL contexts and providing document structure reuse. In addition, this paper also presents two authoring tools: the template processor and the wizard to create NCL documents using templates. The wizard tool allows the author to choose a template included in a template base and create an NCL document using that template. The template processor transforms an NCL document using templates into a standard NCL 3.0 document according to digital TV and IPTV standards.