Composite Multimedia and Active Objects

Abstract

An object-oriented framework for composite multimedia is described. In analogy to constructing complex graphics entities from graphics primitives and geometric transformations, composite multimedia is constructed from multimedia primitives and temporal transformations. Active objects based on real-time processes are proposed as multimedia primitives. Their combination to form composite multimedia and the requisite temporal transformations are illustrated. 1. Introduction The improving capabilities of multimedia workstations, combined with the development of multimedia recording formats (for example, CD-I and DVI, see [14] for a recent description) is likely to increase the demand for applications involving multimedia. However the development of multimedia applications is presently hampered by two key problems: First, multimedia involves concepts from audio recording, video production, animation, and music -- concepts that are novel to many programmers. Second, multimedia operations of...