Cécile Roisin

Madeus, and authoring environment for interactive multimedia documents

We present Madeus, an authoring environment for interactive multimedia documents. Madeus ‘aim can be sumed up in the following statement : high temporal expressivity must not be reached to the detriment of a user-friendly inter

A structured authoring environment for the World-Wide Web

ace editing approach. We provide the author with a declarative and hierarchic specification language based on an extension of Allen ’s algebra. Static temporal checking and dynamic scheduling are based on an extension of temporal constraint networks. Multimedia documents compose in time and space different types of elements like video, audio, still-picture, text, synthesized image, etc. Interactive multimedia documents aim at transforming the reader from passive (he cannot interact with the document presentation) to an active one. Our goals is to design an authoring environment for interactive multimedia documents [4,5]. We set the following ambitious target for our projects:

An XML-Based Multimedia Document Processing Model for Content Adaptation

Abstract Authoring documents for the World-Wide Web is not always an easy task. Most authors either directly type HTML syntax with a text editor or convert files that they produce with various document preparation systems, but both methods pose problems. We propose another approach, based on a structured document editor, Grif. The main characteristics of HTML documents are analyzed and the extensions that these documents have imposed to the Grif editor are presented. With these extensions, Grif becomes a comfortable environment for authoring WWW documents, and it allows better and more rigorously structured documents to be produced. It also allows a smooth evolution towards SGML.

The limsee3 multimedia authoring model

In this paper we present a general framework for document production that covers generic document model needs and adaptation needs. We define a multimedia document model called Madeus that describes multimedia scenarios. We show how this model is used for the generation of adaptable presentations. This presentation process is based on XSLT transformation techniques and constraint technologies for document formatting.

Dealing with Uncertain Durations in Synchronized Multimedia Presentations

For most users, authoring multimedia documents remains a complex task. One solution to deal with this problem is to provide template-based authoring tools but with the drawback of limited functionality. In this paper we propose a document model dedicated to the creation of authoring tools using templates while keeping rich composition capabilities. It is based on a component oriented approach integrating homogeneously logical, time and spatial structures. Templates are defined as constraints on these structures.

A Scalable Toolkit for Designing Multimedia Authoring Environments

In this paper, we discuss the effect of the uncertainty in the duration of some multimedia objects on the quality of the presentation of multimedia scenarios. This uncertainty can be due to external factors such as the access delay over internet or the user interaction. An uncertain duration is often followed by a period of desynchronization during which the presentation deviates from the desired scenario. To solve this problem, we present in this paper a solution that integrates two complementary approaches which reduce the desynchronization and limit its propagation in the rest of the presentation. These approaches are non-blocking and use the flexibility in the duration of multimedia objects in order to resynchronize the presentation as rapidly as possible.

Authoring Structured Multimedia Documents

This paper introduces Kaomi, a scalable toolkit for designing authoring environments of multimedia documents. The underlying concept is to provide the designer of multimedia applications with a fast method to get an authoring system based on a set of synchronized views (the presentation view for displaying the document, the scenario view for showing the temporal organization of the document, ...) so that each view is the support of editing actions. Kaomi is flexible enough to support a variety of multimedia documents declarative formats. It is indeed a scalable toolkit since it provides facilities for extending and/or for modifying the resulting authoring environment. In addition, cross-platform portability is provided which allows operation in the heterogenous Internet environment. The use of Kaomi is mainly described through the design of two authoring environments: one for authoring a sub-set of the Smil standard of the W3C and the other one for Madeus, a constraint based multimedia language.

Constraint Techniques for Authoring Multimedia Documents

This document aims at describing main issues in the area of structured multimedia documents. Documents can be modelled through four main dimensions (logical, hypermedia, spatial and temporal) and will be illustrated by the main corresponding standards (SGML/XML, HTML, CSS, DSSSL/XSL, SMIL). Building authoring tools that are capable to deal with these dimensions (and specially the temporal one) is still a great challenge. We describe some authoring applications and develop temporal aspects of documents through the analysis of new specification and authoring needs required for handling multimedia documents.

Authoring SMIL documents by direct manipulations during presentation

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.

Type modelling for document transformation in structured editing systems

This paper presents Smil‐Editor – an authoring environment to write multimedia documents encoded in SMIL. The main feature of Smil‐Editor 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 well‐known WYSIWYG paradigm used by usual word‐processors. Moreover, in order to help the author to specify the temporal organisation of documents, Smil‐Editor 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.