Xavier Amatriain

The AlloSphere: Immersive Multimedia for Scientific Discovery and Artistic Exploration

The AlloSphere is a spherical space in which immersive, virtual environments allow users to explore large-scale data sets through multimodal, interactive media.

The allosphere: a large-scale immersive surround-view instrument

We present the design of the Allosphere and initial experiences from its ongoing implementation. The UCSB Allosphere is a novel large-scale instrument for immersive visualization and simulation, which in its full realization will be one of the worlds largest immersive environments. The three-story high cubical space comprises an anechoic chamber with a spherical display screen, ten meters in diameter, surrounding from one to thirty users standing on a bridge structure. The Allosphere is differentiated from conventional virtual reality environments by its size and focus on collaborative experiences, its seamless surround-view capabilities and its focus on multiple sensory modalities and interaction. The Allosphere is being equipped with high-resolution active stereo projectors, a complete 3D sound system with hundreds of speakers, and interaction technology. In this paper we will give an overview of the purpose of the instrument as well as the systems that are being put into place in order to equip it. We also review the first results and experiences in developing and using the Allosphere in several prototype projects.

CLAM: A Framework for Audio and Music Application Development

The CLAM (C++ Library for Audio and Music) development framework offers a complete R&D platform for the audio and music domain. Winner of the 2006 ACM Open Source Multimedia Software Competition, CLAM originated in an effort to organize a repository of audio-processing algorithms. Today it includes an abstract model for audio systems, a repository of processing algorithms and data types, and several tools and stand-alone applications. Developers can exploit all these features to build cross-platform applications or rapid prototypes for testing signal- and media-processing algorithms and systems

CLAM: a framework for efficient and rapid development of cross-platform audio applications

CLAM is a C++framework that offers a complete development and research platform for the audio and music domain. Apart from offering an abstract model for audio systems, it also includes a repository of processing algorithms and data types as well as a number of tools such as audio or MIDI input/output. All these features can be exploited to build cross-platform applications or to build rapid prototypes to test signal and media processing algorithms and systems. The framework also includes a number of stand-alone applications that can be used for tasks such as audio analysis/synthesis, plug-in development or metadata annotation.In this article we give a brief overview of CLAMs features and applications.

A framework for efficient and rapid development of cross-platform audio applications

In this article, we present CLAM, a C++ software framework, that offers a complete development and research platform for the audio and music domain. It offers an abstract model for audio systems and includes a repository of processing algorithms and data types as well as all the necessary tools for audio and control input/output. The framework offers tools that enable the exploitation of all these features to easily build cross-platform applications or rapid prototypes for media processing algorithms and systems. Furthermore, included ready-to-use applications can be used for tasks such as audio analysis/synthesis, plug-in development, feature extraction or metadata annotation. CLAM represents a step forward over other similar existing environments in the multimedia domain. Nevertheless, it also shares models and constructs with many of those. These commonalities are expressed in the form of a metamodel for multimedia processing systems and a design pattern language.

A Domain-Specific Metamodel for Multimedia Processing Systems

In this paper, we introduce 4MPS, a metamodel for multimedia processing systems. The goal of 4MPS is to offer a generic system metamodel that can be instantiated to describe any multimedia processing design. The metamodel combines the advantages of the object-oriented paradigm and metamodeling techniques with system engineering principles and graphical models of computation. 4MPS is based on the classification of multimedia processing objects into two main categories: Processing objects that operate on data and controls, and Data objects that passively hold media content. Processing objects encapsulate a method or algorithm. They also include support for synchronous data processing and asynchronous event-driven Controls as well as a configuration mechanism and an explicit life cycle state model. Data input to and output from Processing objects is done through Ports. Data objects offer a homogeneous interface to media data, and support for metaobject-like facilities such as reflection and serialization. The metamodel can be expressed in the language of graphical models of computation such as the Dataflow Networks and presents a comprehensive conceptual framework for media signal processing applications. 4MPS has its practical validation in several existing environments, including the authors CLAM framework.

Experiencing Audio and Music in a Fully Immersive Environment

The UCSB Allosphere is a 3-story-high spherical instrument in which virtual environments and performances can be experienced in full immersion. The space is now being equipped with high-resolution active stereo projectors, a 3D sound system with several hundred speakers, and with tracking and interaction mechanisms. The Allosphere is at the same time multimodal, multimedia, multi-user, immersive, and interactive. This novel and unique instrument will be used for research into scientific visualization/auralization and data exploration, and as a research environment for behavioral and cognitive scientists. It will also serve as a research and performance space for artists exploring new forms of art. In particular, the Allosphere has been carefully designed to allow for immersive music and aural applications. In this paper, we give an overview of the instrument, focusing on the audio subsystem. We give the rationale behind some of the design decisions and explain the different techniques employed in making the Allosphere a truly general-purpose immersive audiovisual lab and stage. Finally, we present first results and our experiences in developing and using the Allosphere in several prototype projects.