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1996
Report
Titel
Concepts for the efficient handling of multimedia data within a mobile environment
Alternative
MOMID. Deliverable 3
Abstract
With the development of enabling technologies such as wireless networking and various types of affordable Mobile Data Terminals (MDTs), mobile computing has begun to be widely accepted and applied. However, in a mobile environment, it is very difficult to achieve the same level of Multimedia Data Handling (MDH) as in a desktop environment because of the inherent limitations of a mobile environment, such as the limited resources of MDTs, the different bandwidths and varying reliability of WAN wireless communication networks, subject to loss or damage, and finite energy source. Albeit the shortcomings of a mobile environment, an efficient MDH schould be provided in a mobile environment. The reasons for this are namifold, one of which is that it has a decisive influence on the acceptance of mobile computing: mobile users who are used to processing multimedia data with their desktop computers expect to handle multimedia data in the same manner with their MDTs. Many existing telecommunicati on services are multimedia featured and they should be further useable within a mobile environment. Therefore, an efficient MDH in a mobile environment is a fundamental requirement. We believe that mobile MDH must be both powerful and flexible. On the one hand, it must be powerful enough so that an acceptable level of service can be reached. In this regard, mant research and development results achieved for desktop MDH can be used. On the other hand, mobile MDH must be flexible enough so that a mobile system can adapt itself to the state of the available resources in order to achieve the best quality of service available (in regard to efficiency, media quality, etc.) or to support a mobile user in making an optimal compromise between performance, cost and quality. In this regard, new concepts and techniques are needed. To make MDH powerful and flexible, two main aspects need to be dealt with: data handling and its distribution. The aim of Chapter two is to lay a basis for later chapte r s. It at first describes the scope of MoWare. Then, it outlines the possible technical issues o MoWare which may be involved by classifying them. Thereafter, it specifies the MoWare scope more concretely by introducing two important interfaces, the user interface and the service interface, and their positions in a decomposition process of a multimedia data handling. Chapter 3 proposes a central solution to the MDH - a Mobile Multimedia Visualization Pipeline (MMVP). To idntify concrete rquirements on a basic schema of a mobile multimedia data access and transfer process has been established. For the establishment of such a MMVP a general task based approach is given which is extensible both in the sense that a new task can be easily added to be supported in the form of a MMVP and that the funcionality of a single task can also be easily extended. For a flexible task specification of a MMVP, the concepts such as interval, option list and conditional specification are proposed, and par am eters that are necessary for mobile MDH are investigated. Chapter 4 describes a concrete development of a Mobile Image Visualization Pipeline (MIVP). Firstly, the funcionality of the MIVP is given. Secondly, the characteristics of the medium image are analyzed in order to shed light on what has to be taken into account and what should be taken advantage of i developing a MIVP. To identify rules and pipeline components, a set of tasks is chosen, and the tasks are decomposed according to the approach for the establishment of a MIVP given in the previous chapter. The development of a MIVP validates the concept of MMVP. Chapter 5 introduces the area of visualization applications and its optimization for a mobile environment. Especially, the extreme computational requirements of a rendering process need an intelligent allocation strategy for the resources. Therefore, a rendering pipeline may be adapted in regard to the available resources or capabilities. Chapter 6 describes the basic co mpo nents of a framework that supports an environment dependent adaption of mobile applications. They provide funcionalities to select the subtasks needed to accomplish a task and to find the resources required to perfom these subtasks. Therefore, a Knowledge Level Model is introduced on which a Resurce and Task Manager bases its decision for the delegation of tasks in a mobile environment. Finally, the establishment of a task-oriented interface is shortly discussed. Chapter 7 outlines the objectives of the prototypes, demonstrators and integraton strategies. HyperFunk, Suse and Anna are the selected demonstrators. Chapter 8 gives a summary
Verlagsort
Darmstadt