supporting the reuse of multimedia presentations

Applications

NOR'I~ - HOI.J.,AND

Supporting the Reuse of Multimedia Presentations

CHI-MING C H U N G TIMOTHY K. SHIH CHIN-HWA KUO

and

WEI-CHUAN LIN

Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering, Tamkang University, Tamsui, Taiwan, Republic of China

Communicated by Louis R. Chow

ABSTRACT

We developed an intelligent multimedia presentation design system earlier. Based on the system, we now develop a multimedia database system that supports the reuse of multimedia presentations and resources. The database consists of two layers: the frame layer and the resource layer. A frame group in the first layer is the basic presentation unit to be reused. A resource group in the second layer is a collection of resources to be used by a frame or a frame group. In these two layers, we use four types of links in the database to group frames a n d / o r resources. Also, multimedia resources are associated with a number of properties. Using these properties, we allow the user to search for resources via a database browser. The database is built on the top of a commercial object-oriented database server and run under a windowing system. © Elsevier Science Inc. 1997

1. I N T R O D U C T I O N

A s m u l t i m e d i a p e r s o n a l c o m p u t e r s wide ly ava i l ab le wi th r e a s o n a b l e

pr ices , m u l t i m e d i a PCs bui l t wi th a s o u n d card , C D R O M , and h i g h - r e s o -

l u t i on g r aph i c s d i sp lay un i t a r e u s e d b r o a d l y by bus iness pe r sons , eng i -

neers , a n d o thers . D u e to t h e i m p r e s s i v e s o u n d ef fec t , g r aph i c s a n i m a t i o n ,

INFORMATION SCIENCES 101, 131-151 (1997) © Elsevier Science Inc. 1997 0020-0255/97/$17.00 655 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10010 PII S0020-0255(97)00005-4

132 C.-M. CHUNG ET AL.

and video play, the importance and business opportunity of multimedia presentations are realized by researchers and commercial software devel- opers. Presentation design software is also available for affordable prices. However, most presentations generated by these systems communicate with the addressee in a single-direction manner. That is, the presentation software does not listen to the listener's response. For this reason, we have developed an intelligent multimedia presentation design system [8, 9] to overcome the shortage. Our research is to investigate presentation design techniques, and to develop a system that helps multimedia presentation designers to deliver intelligent multimedia applications as CD ROM titles. Our research project focuses on the following issues:

• canonical representation of knowledge • intelligent presentation specification language • addressee characteristics specification and learning • multimedia resources DBMS with reuse controls.

Presentation intelligence is represented by a canonical rule-based format. This knowledge not only includes the addressee's background (i.e., common sense of the person who watches the presentation), but allows human reactions to be learned by the presentation program. A database management system is also designed for the CD ROM title designers to organize and store multimedia resource information. This database is associated with a presentation reuse control model. An intelligent specification language is designed. The language provides facilities for hypermedia access and rule-based statements for knowledge representation. Our system supports personalization. Not only can the graphical user interface of the generated presentation be fully customized, but the underlying knowledge of the addressee can be easily updated. The system also provides a learning subsystem to be included in the generated title, which allows an addressee's interaction to be asserted into the knowledge base. This learning environment, the presentation inference engine, and components marked with an asterisk in Figure 1 will be included in the runtime environment of a CD ROM title. Figure 1 illustrates the overall architecture of our proposed system.

This paper focuses on the discussion of an object-oriented multimedia presentation/resource database. Section 2 is a survey of related works. Section 3 presents the hierarchy of our database. Some important properties of multimedia resources and presentations are addressed in Section 4. We discuss the reuse of presentations and resources in Section 5; the

SUPPORTING REUSE OF MULTIMEDIA PRESENTATIONS 133

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Fig. 1. A system for intelligent multimedia presentation designs.

implementation details are given in Section 6. Finally, a short conclusion and the discussion of our future works are given in Section 7.

2. RELATED WORKS

A number of researchers have developed domain-specific presentations using artificial intelligence techniques. For example, COMET (COordi- nated Multimedia Explanation Testbed) [12, 13] uses a knowledge base and AI techniques to generate coordinated, interactive explanations with text and graphics that illustrate how to repair a military radio receiver- transmitter. WIP [1, 2] is able to generate knowledge-based presentations


that explain to a user how to use an espresso machine. The work described in [4] integrates knowledge representation systems and a propositional logic theorem prover to create text and map-based illustrations showing the situations and plans of a Navy's fleet. APT (A Presentation Tool) [16, 17] automatically generates graphical presentations of relational information. A Piano tutor described in [10, 11] is able to use coordinated media, video, voice, and graphics display to teach beginners how to play the piano.

Other papers [18, 5] address relations between multimedia and multiple modalities. A modal is the way information is presented, such as a natural language statement, one piece of a picture, or a table. A medium is the device with which a presentation is delivered, such as sound, text, or video. The approach described in [5] suggests that the mapping should be constructed between characteristics of media and characteristics of information. The research discussed in [5] also proposes that presentation knowledge can be classified naturally into four major groups: characteristics of media, characteristics of information, goal of the presenter, and the background of addressees. Issues related to solving the synchronization problems of temporal multimedia resources can be found in [20, 6]. A multimedia collaborative design environment for scientific and engineering applications can be found in [3]. The work described in [23] is a learning environment for second-year French students to learn about French cul- ture. This multimedia application uses maps and visual icons as well as video files to show locations that can be visited in a city.

The related works addressed above are mostly academic research. On the other hand, we have also looked at some commercial products related to multimedia authoring or presentation designs:

1. Authorware Professional by Macromedia, Inc. 2. Multimedia Viewer by Microsoft 3. Multimedia Toolbook by Asymetrix Corporation 4. Hypermedia System by ITRI 5. Action! by Macromedia, Inc. 6. Audio Visual Connection by IBM 7. Astound by Gold Disk Inc. 8. Director by Macromedia, Inc.

Authorware uses an event control flow diagram allowing the presenter to specify presentation objects and controls, which can be decomposed into several levels in a hierarchy structure. The system also provides a simple script language for calculation and data manipulation. Other systems (i.e., 2, 3, and 6 above) also provide script languages and API (application program interface) functions. Hypermedia System, Action!, and Director


use a time line table allowing actions or objects to be dropped in a particular time slot. Most systems allow users to cut and paste presentation objects or actions via button click and drawing. Multimedia Viewer also provides a set of medium editing tools. Presentation objects produced by these tools can be linked together by a script language supporting functions, data structures, and commands. None of the above systems, however, allows the interactive sequences provided by a user to be learned by a presentation.

To support the creation of a good multimedia presentation, many papers suggest that a multimedia database supporting fast indexing and synchronization is essential [7, 19, 21, 24]. The discussion of issues in multimedia database management systems can be found in [19]. A distributed database supporting the development of multimedia applications is found in [7]. A mechanism for formal specification and modeling of multimedia object composition is found in [15]. The work discussed in [15] also consider the temporal properties of multimedia resources. A database system for video objects is discussed in [14]. A content-based querying mechanism for retrieving images is given in [24]. Layered multimedia data modeling [22] suggests a good mechanism to manage multimedia data.

3. MULTIMEDIA DATABASE HIERARCHY

The advantages of an object-oriented database over a traditional database are in its data sharing via property inheritance, and in the convenience of object reuses. To facilitate a good multimedia presentation design, we have a multimedia database designed using object-oriented techniques. Our database management system supports the integration of multimedia resources and presentation designs. In this section, we present our multimedia database as a subsystem of our intelligent multimedia presentation design system.

Before our discussion of the database, some terminologies are addressed. A multimedia resource is a picture, a text description, a video, or other materials that can he used in a multimedia computer. A topic is a resource carrier that presents the resource to the addressee. A frame is a composed object which represents related issues that a presenter wants to illustrate. A frame may contain push buttons, one or more topics to be presented, and a number of knowledge rules. A message with optional parameters can be passed between two frames (or back to the same frame) to trigger a multimedia presentation action.

136 C.-M. C H U N G ET AL.

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The hierarchy of the proposed multimedia database consists two layers: the frame object layer and the resource object layer. Figure 2 gives an overall view of the database. In the hierarchy, objects are connected by links. Two types of objects are implemented: frames and resources. And four types of links are used, as discussed in the following definitions.

DEFINITION. An inheritance link, denoted by a thick straight line, represents a property inheritance between two frames in Fig. 2.

S U P P O R T I N G R E U S E OF M U L T I M E D I A P R E S E N T A T I O N S 137

Inheritance links are used in the process of knowledge collection of an activated frame before the logical inference of the f rame proceeds [8, 9]. A message, with or without parameters , shows the usage relation between two frames.

DEFINITION. A usage link, represented by a labeled thin straight line, is a link which represents a message passed between two frames.

DEFINITION. An aggregation link, shown by a curved line with a single direction arrow, indicates that a f rame is using a resource.

An aggregation link connects frames and resources in the two layers of the database. An association may exist in between two resources. For example, an animation resource is associated with an M I D I resource which is used as the background music.

DEFINITION. An association link is represented by a bidirection arrowed curved line between two resources which are correlated.

The two types of objects in our database are frames and resources. A frame is denoted by a box, while a resource is represented by a circle, with its associated properties given in an attached rounded box. The actual data of a resource are stored in the commercial multimedia file format on the hard disk. 1

So far, we have discussed the overall picture of our database system. In the next section, we summarize important properties of the two types of objects in our database.

4. M U L T I M E D I A OB J EC T A T T R I B U T E S

To create a high-quality multimedia presentation, not only is a good presentation design environment essential, but good multimedia resources are the key. Multimedia resources are recorded or captured via camera, tape recorder, or video camera, converted to their digital formats, and saved on the disk. These resource files can be reused in different presentations. A resource is associated with a number of attributes. We consider

1For the current implementation, our database still relies on the file system. However, we are seeking techniques that allow fast indexing of multimedia resources for future versions of our multimedia database.


the following attributes for objects in the resource object layer of our database:

• Name: A unique name of the resource. • Keyword: One or more keywords are used as the description of a

multimedia resource. For instance, name of the city is a keyword of the bi tmapped picture of Paris.

• Usage: How the resource is used (e.g., background, navigation, or focus).

• M e d i u m : What multimedia device is used to carry out this resource (e.g., sound, video, MPEG, or picture).

• Model: How the resource is presented (e.g., table, map, chart, or spoken language).

• T e m p o r a l E n d u r a n c e : How long the resource lasts in a presentation (e.g., 20 s or permanent) .

• Synchronization Tolerance: How a participant feels about the synchronization delay of a resource. For instance, user usually expects the immediate response after pushing a button for the next page of text. But, the user might be able to tolerate a video play being delayed for 2 s.

• Detectability: How the resource attracts a listener (e.g., high, medium, or low).

• Startup Delay: The duration between a message being issued and the corresponding resource being presented, especially when the resource is on a remote computer connected via network.

• H a r d w a r e L i m i t a t i o n : What kind of hardware is essential for carrying out the resource (e.g., MPC level 1, level 2, level 3, or other limita- tions).

• Version: The version of this resource file. • Date : The date and time this resource file is created. • Resolution: The resolution of this resource file, specified by X x Y (or

0 X 0) screen units. • S ta r t /End Time: For nonpermanent resources, the starting cycle and

the ending cycle of the piece of video, sound, or other resource that can be used, especially as a presentation resource. A cycle can be a second, one-tenth of a second, or a f lame number of a v ideo /an ima- tion.

• Resource Descriptor: A logical descriptor to a physical resource data segment on the disk.

• Association Links: Pointers to other resources that have a coexistence relation with the current resource.

SUPPORTING REUSE OF M U L T I M E D I A PRESENTATIONS 139

Since each resource has a number of attributes, if each query needs to contain all of these attributes, it will be tiresome. Thus, we propose an intelligent mechanism that makes a query easier. The database is built in with a number of inference rules. Each rule describes an i f - then relation between two attributes. The following are some of the rules used in our database:

If usage : focus then detectability : high

If model : illustration then medium : picture

If medium = picture then temporal_endurance = permanent

If medium = MPEG then hardware_limitation = MPEG_card

If model = map then medium = picture

If ... etc.

Some unspecified attributes can be deduced from others. Thus, a user does not need to specify all attributes of a resource while h e / s h e is using a query to search for the resource.

In the frame object layer, each frame is also associated with a number of attributes:

• N a m e : A unique name of the frame. • Keyword: One or more keywords are used as the description of the

frame. • Inheritance Links: Pointers to other frames which inherit properties

from the current frame. • Usage Links: Messages from the current frame to the destination

frames, including possible parameters. • Aggregation Links: Pointers to resources which are used in the

current frame. • Presentation Knowledge: Logic facts, rules, and a query used in the

frame when the frame is open [9]. Note that presentation properties can be represented as logic facts.

• Frame Layouts: Screen coordinates of resources.

The above attributes in the two object layers are used in database queries to retrieve suitable objects for a multimedia presentation. Presen- tation knowledge and frame layouts are provided by the user via our graphical user interface [9, 8]. In Section 5, we discuss the reuse of frames and resources.


5. OBJECT REUSE

The reuse of objects in our system is based on the concept of object groups. An object group is a collection of objects which serves as the basic unit in a presentation. For example, a piece of presentation showing that the history of computers consists of several frames associated with a number of resources used in the frames is defined as a reusable object. This piece of presentation can be reused in several computer-related presentations. Two types of groups are defined in the database: the frame groups and the resource groups (both are denoted by circles in Fig. 2). A frame group or a resource group could become a reusable object stored in the database if the group is declared by the user via our graphical user interface. After the declaration, an object group becomes an object class. The frame object class and resource object class will be reused when instantiated later on.

Before an object group is stored as an object class in the database, some links will be discarded while some links will be maintained. For the frames in a frame group, the usage (or inheritance) links are divided into two parts: the internal usage (or inheritance) links and the external usage (or inheritance) links. An internal usage (or inheritance) link has its source and destination frames both in the frame group. An external usage (or inheritance) link, on the other hand, has its destination frame outside the frame group. When a frame group becomes a frame object class, our system keeps the internal inheritance links, the internal usage links, and the aggregation links. But the system will discard all external links of the frame group. The similar concept is applied to a resource group. When a resource group becomes a resource object class, our system keeps the internal association links and discards all external association links.

The process of instantiation requires the allocation of memory or disk storage for the new instantiated object group, and the declaration of external links to other objects in the presentation. For a frame group instantiation, the external usage links and the external inheritance links will be restored by the user. For a resource group instantiation, the external association links need to be given. An instantiation process creates a new object group with new links connected to other objects in the presentation. But the instantiation process does not duplicate information that can be shared among instances, such as frame layouts or the actual resource data stored on the disk.

The management of object reuse is assisted by our presentation reuse control interface and resource browser. The user is able to use our system to organize their presentations and resources systematically. The discussion of our database implementation is given in Section 6.


5.1. A N E X A M P L E OF OBJECT REUSE

In this section, we illustrate the object reuse mechanism by an example. In the database hierarchy shown in Fig. 3, there are four frame groups in the frame object layer and five resource groups in the resource object layer. The four frame groups are to teach a student how to write a C program and a Basic program, as well as to introduce some concepts of operating systems, computer architecture, and data representations. The first two groups not only have messages passed among frames in the individual groups, but have messages passed to frames in other frame

Fig. 3. An example of object reuse.


groups. These four frame groups can be declared as frame object classes for reuse by other presentations. Note that all external links will be discarded. Each resource group contains one or more resource objects. Resource objects belonging to the same group are linked by association links. Note that the example illustrates the group association mechanism. Some resources are omitted from the discussion.

6. DATABASE IMPLEMENTATION

ObjectPro/ODB [25] is an object-oriented database management system developed by the Institute for Information Industry in Taiwan. The system provides a graphical user interface for the management of database schema. ObjectPro/ODB also provides a set of Application Program Interface (API) functions available as Dynamic Linked Libraries (DLLs). The API functions allow our program to create the database hierarchy via a number of schema management functions. The system also supports the storage/retrieval of large binary data, which is essential for multimedia resources. Based on ObjectPro/ODB, we develop our multimedia database.

Frame objects and resource objects are persistent objects in the database schema. Properties of frames and resources are attributes of classes. ObjectPro/ODB provides three types of links among objects. They are the general links, the reference links, and the composition links. Deleting a general link in the database schema will not affect the corresponding source and destination objects. However, deleting an object will also destroy the general links attached to the object. For the reference links and the composition links, if one or more links to a destination object exist, one cannot delete the destination object. Also, for the composition link, if an object is deleted, its child objects are deleted as well. In our database layers, we have four types of links: the inheritance links, the usage links, the aggregation links, and the association links. The inheritance links are implemented as the composition links in ObjectPro/ODB. That is, to delete a frame group, one deletes the root frame. Usage links (for message passing) are created at runtime as navigation results. A usage link occupies no storage. Only the messages are stored as data members of a frame object class in the database. The aggregation links are implemented as the general links in ObjectPro/ODB. And the association links are implemented as the reference links.

The inheritance links are created by the user of our system by declaring a child frame. The usage links are defined in the presentation message-


passing interface of our presentation system. When a multimedia resource is assigned to a topic in a frame, the system creates an aggregation link. The association links have to be decided and created by the user as well via our graphical user interface. The Appendix discusses the interface of our system.

7. CONCLUSIONS

An object-oriented multimedia database is introduced. The database system is intended to support the design of intelligent multimedia presentations constructed by using our presentation system. A presentation consists of a number of frame groups. The generalization of a frame group, called a frame object class, serves as the basic reusable unit of a multimedia presentation. Similarly, the generalization of a resource group, or an individual resource as a group, can be reused. This reuse mechanism, supported by a graphical user interface, allows a user to organize h is /her multimedia resources and presentation pieces easily. The intelligent multimedia presentation system as well as its supporting database run under MS Windows. 2 The database hierarchy consists of two layers: the frame object layer and the resource object layer. Another paper [22] also proposes this layered approach for multimedia data modeling. However, the reuse of multimedia objects is not fully discussed. Our approach focuses not only on the hierarchy of the database, but on the mechanism of reusing multimedia objects.

We are investigating the semantic modeling of multimedia presentations. As indicated in [15], the temporal properties of multimedia resources and presentations need to be considered in the semantic model. We are using interval temporal logic to express the temporal properties of multimedia resources and solve the application level synchronization problems. Another area of our future work is to investigate database indexing techniques for the fast retrieval of multimedia data.

The contributions of this paper are, firstly, that we propose a database hierarchy using an object-oriented approach. This hierarchy is then implemented on top of the ObjectPro/ODB database management system to support our intelligent multimedia presentation designs. Finally, the reuse mechanism allows the users of our system to organize and reuse their presentation easily.

2 Our future version of the database will run under the Windows NT server.


APPENDIX: A SAMPLE SECTION

In this section, we present the graphical user interface of our system. The first window is the presentation design system window shown in Fig. 4. This window allows the user to drop various presentation topics in the design area shown in the box surrounded by a thick line. Presentation topics include Text, Audio, etc., shown as buttons on the left side of the window. The presentation design system window is used in conjunction with the presentation knowledge inheritance window shown in Fig. 5. The knowledge inheritance hierarchy is constructed by using different functions shown in the menu bar of the window. Inheritance links among frame objects are thus created, while the inheritance relations are declared. To

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add rules or facts of the knowledge set of a frame, one has to use the frame intelligent window shown in Fig. 6. The discussion of the knowledge rules can be found in [8, 9].

To add a usage (or message) link, the user has to use the presentation message-passing window shown in Fig. 7. The vertical bar represents a

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frame indicated by its name on the top of that bar. Messages are passed while a button in a frame is pushed (or as a side effect of a knowledge inference discussed in [8, 9]). Push buttons are shown as boxes on vertical bars. Each message, with its name displayed as the label of a usage link (shown as an arrowed horizontal line), is associated with one or more parameters separated by commas. These parameters are entered in the message window shown on the lower right side in Fig. 7. When a message is received by a frame object, the corresponding actions that the frame needs to perform will be entered in the frame actions control window in Fig. 8. The type of actions available to the system is discussed in [8, 9].

A multimedia resource browser (Fig. 9) is also designed to allow a user to retrieve resources ready for presentation designs. Resource attributes are selected or entered in different components of the window. When the aggregation link button (i.e., AggLink button) is pushed, the highlighted resource in the list box is linked to a topic of a frame.

The reuse of frame objects and resource objects is controlled by the presentation reuse control window shown in Fig. 10. Each frame object class or resource object class contains a number of frames or resources shown in the left list box of the individual subwindow in the presentation reuse control window.

Fig. 8. The frame actions control window.


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The association links are declared in the multimedia resource association control window shown in Fig. 11. Each highlighted resource (shown in the first list box from the left) is linked to a number of resources shown in the second list box. The available resources are shown in the third list box.

This work was supported by NSC Grant NSC 85-2213-E-032-011 of the Republic of China.


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Received 1 January 1996; revised 27April 1996

supporting the reuse of multimedia presentations

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