A Multimedia Authoring-in-the-Large Environment to Support Complex Product Documentation

In this paper, we present a new paradigm for multimedia document authoring to support large-scaled industrial technical documentation. An industrial-strength multimedia authoring environment requires a high degree of automation support for producing a large amount of high-quality technical documentation efficiently and effectively, and provides a consistent user interface to facilitate viewing and browsing of large-scaled technical contents. Product documentation includes technical information in all media for all aspects of a product during the life cycle of the product. Product documents are highly cross-referenced and often shared by a family of related product models. Previous authoring paradigms have their limitations in supporting such complex technical documentation required for today's sophisticated products. Our approach is based on an authoring-in-the-large paradigm by adopting formal configuration specifications for automatically assembling machine-specific product manuals from component documents, and formal hyperlink specifications for systematically creating hyperlinks in highly cross-referenced technical documents. Integrated media-specific viewers are provided to support viewing, browsing and navigation of large-scaled hyperlinked multimedia contents in a consistent manner for various product-related applications such as operation, maintenance and training on various platforms such as UNIX, PC/Windows, laptops and hand-held devices locally and over network.     

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     

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。     

多媒体结构的设计与选择

构造一个上下文敏感,具有可交互性的多媒体表示远比单纯构造视听信息或者单纯构造文本信息复杂得多.多媒体对象之间的交互需要有一个用来同步和异步交互的,包括立即响应的时空关系组织起来.根据构造环境的需要来考虑多媒体的结构构造.先通过介绍影响多媒体结构构造的7个要素来认识多媒体,然后在4种典型的构造模式中进行多媒体环境的选择.这4种构造模式分别是:结构化、时间关系、图关系、脚本形式.通过各种各样的观察和分析发现,结构化的多媒体构造为多媒体的表示提供了最为有效的表示形式.     

Authoring of scalable multimedia documents

With the diversity of usage conditions affecting the consumption of multimedia content, the adaptation of dynamic and interactive multimedia presentations is essential. The challenge consists in allowing a multimedia presentation to adapt in all its dimensions: spatially, temporally and interactively, without lessening its attractiveness and still giving the author the control over adapted versions. Additionally, the authoring of adaptable content should not increase the complexity of authoring. To address this challenge, we propose to transpose the concept of scalability to the world of multimedia documents by introducing the so-called Scalable MSTI model. In this paper, we show the properties of this model and how, from an authoring point of view, scalable multimedia documents can be created to address a wide range of usage conditions.     

ZYX-a multimedia document model for reuse and adaptationof multimedia content

Advanced multimedia applications require adequate support for the modeling of multimedia content by multimedia document models. More and more this support calls for not only the adequate modeling of the temporal and spatial course of a multimedia presentation and its interactions, but also for the partial reuse of multimedia documents and adaptation to a given user context. However, our thorough investigation of existing standards for multimedia document models such as HTML, MHEG, SMIL, and HyTime leads to us the conclusion that these standard models do not provide sufficient modeling support for reuse and adaptation. Therefore, we propose a new approach for the modeling of adaptable and reusable multimedia content, the Z_YX model. The model offers primitives that provide-beyond the more or less common primitives for temporal, spatial, and interaction modeling-a variform support for reuse of structure and layout of document fragments and for the adaptation of the content and its presentation to the user context. We present the model in detail and illustrate the application and effectiveness of these concepts by samples taken from our Cardio-OP application in the domain of cardiac surgery. With the Z_YX model, we developed a comprehensive means for advanced multimedia content creation: support for template-driven authoring of multimedia content and support for flexible, dynamic composition of multimedia documents customized to the user's local context and needs. The approach significantly impacts and supports the authoring process in terms of methodology and economic aspects     

An ODA-like Multimedia Document System

A multimedia document is composed of different media objects. ISO's Open Document Architecture (ODA) proposes a standard multimedia document model. However, the current ODA profile only includes static media, e.g. text, geometric graphics and images. Because the future multimedia documents not only include static media but also continuous media, e.g. video and audio, continuous media document parts should be added to have a complete multimedia document model. In this paper, we propose a multimedia document model, which is derived from ODA's concept. The proposed model is based on the object-oriented approach. Objects in the proposed document model are divided into two types: data objects and pseudo objects. Data objects are data structures of a document; pseudo objects are used to manage data objects. Based on the proposed model, a multimedia document authoring and presenting system (MMDS) is also developed on SUN SPARC workstations using the Solaris 2.X operating system     

Constraint Techniques for Authoring Multimedia Documents

Authoring a multimedia document requires to specify both its spatial layout and its temporal organization, i.e. when and where objects such as pictures, texts and videos appear/disappear on /from the screen and when objects such as audios and videos start/end to play. In this paper, we present some benefits authors can gain when using an authoring tool in which constraints are used to specify these two kinds of information. We describe our experience in building Madeus, a constraint-based environment to design multimedia documents and we point out technical problems that still need to be solved to more completely satisfy author requirements.     

Authoring SMIL documents by direct manipulations during presentation

This paper presents SmilEditor – an authoring environment to write multimedia documents encoded in SMIL. The main feature of SmilEditor is to strongly integrate the presentation view, in which the document is executed, with the editing process. In this view objects can be selected to perform a wide set of editing actions ranging from attributes setting to direct spatial or temporal editions. This way of editing a multimedia document is close to the wellknown WYSIWYG paradigm used by usual wordprocessors. Moreover, in order to help the author to specify the temporal organisation of documents, SmilEditor provides an execution report displayed through a timeline view. This view also contains information which helps the author to understand why such execution occurred. These multiple and synchronised views aim at covering the various needs for authoring multimedia documents.     

Modelling Reactive Multimedia: Design and Authoring

Multimedia document authoring is a multifaceted activity, and authoring tools tend to concentrate on a restricted set of the activities involved in the creation of a multimedia artifact. In particular, a distinction may be drawn between the design and the implementation of a multimedia artifact.This paper presents a comparison of three different authoring paradigms, based on the common case study of a simple interactive animation. We present details of its implementation using the three different authoring tools, MCF, Fran and SMIL 2.0, and we discuss the conclusions that may be drawn from our comparison of the three approaches.Simon Thompson is grateful to the British Council for its funding of travel in support of the work reported here.Supported by an individual research grant from NSERC. This author’s research was performed, in part, at LIRMM, Montpellier, France.Supported by an individual research grant from NSERC.     

多媒体编著语言的设计与实现

根据基于时序逻辑和XYZ系统思想的多媒体数据描述模型,设计并实现了一种新的多媒体编著语言MAL(multimedia authoring language),该语言具有抽象描述、同步描述、逐步求精设计的描述等能力,将多媒体节目中媒体对象的建模和多媒体节目的设计过程在一个统一的框架内进行描述.以该语言实现为核心，研制了一个交互式可视多媒体编著环境.     

A Multimedia Presentation Toolkit for the World Wide Web

This paper describes the design and implementation of MPRES, a Multimedia Presentation Toolkit for the WWW. The WWW has seen phenomenal growth over the last couple of years. It has become a vast repository of multimedia information that is accessible to virtually anyone having a browser. MPRES is a multimedia presentation system that allows a user to compose and render a presentation consisting of objects referenced by their URLs (Uniform Resource Locators). It uses the concept of dynamic documents to render on a WWW browser, a sequence of multimedia scenarios, having objects of types such as audio, image, plaintext, HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) document and animation. MPRES Author, the authoring subsystem, allows the user to interactively test and compose such a presentation, using the Netscape Navigator to collect multimedia resources from the WWW. A presentation database stores the presentations and provides a convenient frontend for accessing them. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons,Ltd.     

基于OCPN的SMIL文档创作平台设计与实现

基于SMIL的多媒体文档创作平台是目前的应用研究重点。SMIL Authoring Tool(SAT)创作平台在参考了SMIL2．O定义基础上，以OCPN为多媒体同步时序定义的基本模型，分析了国内外现有的系统优缺点之后，利用面向对象的方法实现。SAT相对于已有的系统而言，它使用树形组织结构和OCPN对节点之间的时序和节点内部的详细同步信息进行设置，二者互相补充，可使用户进行简单的同步时序设置。     

An integrated runtime QoS-aware middleware framework for distributed multimedia applications

Future-generation distributed multimedia applications are expected to be highly scalable to a wide variety of heterogeneous devices, and highly adaptive across wide-area distributed environments. This demands multiple stages of run-time support in QoS-aware middleware architectures, particularly, probing the performance of QoS parameters, instantiating the initial component configurations, and adapting to on-the-fly variations. However, few of the past experiences in related work have shown comprehensive run-time support in all of the above stages – they often design and build a middleware framework by focusing on only one of the run-time issues. In this paper, we argue that distributed multimedia applications need effective run-time middleware support in all these stages to be highly scalable and adaptive across a wide variety of execution environments. Nevertheless, the design of such a middleware framework should be kept as streamlined and simple as possible, leading to a novel and integrated run-time middleware platform to unify the probing, instantiation and adaptation stages. In addition, for each stage, the framework should enable the interaction of peer middleware components across host boundaries, so that the corresponding middleware function can be performed in a coordinated and coherent fashion. We present the design of such an integrated architecture, with a case study to illustrate how it is simple yet effective to monitor and configure complex multimedia applications.     

多媒体节目时序描述的组合技术

组合性是形式描述研究的基本问题,便于大型程序的设计、分析、测试和复用.为了方便用户编制大型多媒体系统的时序描述,组合模型是必须的.目前,这样的模型有基于语言的、基于图形的、基于时间区间的和面向对象的等等.但是,这些模型描述层次过低,很难支持两个多媒体节目之间的时序描述.通过引入单位流的概念和扩展两种时序关系,研究一种多媒体节目时序描述的结构化技术,使复杂的多媒体节目易于理解,以方便用户运用组合方法把一些可以复用于不同多媒体节目的节目模块进行组合设计.     

Multimedia Document Models: Sealed Fate or Setting Out for New Shores?

Existing multimedia document models like HTML, MHEG, SMIL, and HyTime lack appropriate modeling primitives to fit the needs of next generation multimedia applications which bring up requirements like reusability of multimedia content in different presentations and contexts, and adaptation to user preferences. In this paper, we motivate and present new requirements stemming from advanced multimedia applications and the resulting consequences for multimedia document models. Along these requirements, we discuss the document model standards HTML, HyTime, MHEG, SMIL, and Z_YX, a new model that has been developed with special focus on reusability and adaptation. The analysis and comparison of the models show the limitations of existing models, point the way to the need for new flexible multimedia document models, and throw light on the many implications on authoring systems, multimedia content management, and presentation.     

MING-I: a distributed interactive multimedia document development mechanism

The next generation of interactive multimedia documents can contain both static media, e.g., text, graph, image, and continuous media, e.g., audio and video, and can provide user interactions in distributed environments. However, the temporal information of multimedia documents cannot be described using traditional document structures, e.g., Open Document Architecture (ODA) and Standard Generalized Mark-up Language (SGML); the continuous transmission of media units also raises some new synchronization problems, which have not been met before, for processing user interactions. Thus, developing a distributed interactive multimedia document system should resolve the issues of document model, presentation control architecture, and control scheme. In this paper, we (i) propose a new multimedia document model that contains the logical structure, the layout structure, and the temporal structure to formally describe multimedia documents, and (ii) point out main interaction-based synchronization problems, and propose a control architecture and a token-based control scheme to solve these interaction-based synchronization problems. Based on the proposed document model, control architecture, and control scheme, a distributed interactive multimedia document development mechanism, which is called MING-I, is developed on SUN workstations.     

A Model of Collaborating Agents for Content-Based Electronic Document Filtering

The huge volume of distributed information that is nowadays available in electronic multimedia documents forces a lot of people to consume a significant percentage of their time looking for documents that contain information useful to them. The filtering of electronic documents seems hard to automate, partly because of document heterogeneity, but mainly because it is difficult to train computers to have an understanding of the contents of these documents and make decisions based on user-subjective criteria. In this paper, we suggest a model for the automation of content-based electronic document filtering, supporting multimedia documents in a wide variety of forms. The model is based on multi-agent technology and utilizes an adaptive knowledge base organized as a set of logical rules. Implementations of the model using the client-server architecture should be able to efficiently access documents distributed over an intranet or the Internet.