Technical Rep ort - Ulmer Informatik-Berichte No. 99-01
Department of Computer Science, University of Ulm, Germany.
A Comparison of Multimedia Do cument Mo dels Concerning
Advanced Requirements
Susanne Boll, Wolfgang Klas, Utz Westermann
Databases and Information Systems DBIS ,
Computer Science Department, University of Ulm, Germany
fb oll, klas, [email protected] -ul m.de
Abstract
Existing multimedia do cument mo dels like HTML, MHEG, SMIL, and HyTime lack appropriate
mo deling primitives that meet sp eci c requirements given by advanced multimedia information sy-
stem application s. In traditional multimedia applications, multimedia do cument mo dels just had to
cop e with the mo deling of the temp oral, spatial, and interactive course of a multimedia presentation.
However, we seriously question whether existing mo dels t the needs of next generation multimedia
applications that bring up requirements like reusabilityofmultimedia content in di erent presenta-
tions and contexts, and adaptation to user preferences. In this pap er, we motivate and present new
requirements stemming from advanced multimedia applications and the resulting consequences for
multimedia do cument mo dels. Along these requirements, we discuss HTML, HyTime, MHEG, SMIL,
and Z X, a new mo del that has b een develop ed with sp ecial fo cus on reusability and adaptation. The
Y
analysis and comparison of the mo dels show the limitations of existing mo dels, p oint the waytothe
need for new exible multimedia do cument mo dels, and throw light on the many implicatio ns on
authoring systems, multimedia content management, and presentation.
Keywords: Multimedia do cument mo del, multimedia databases, educational medical applicatio ns.
1 Intro duction
The initial requirements to multimedia do cuments were the mo deling of the temp oral and spatial course
of a multimedia presentation. So on the imp ortance of interactivity for multimedia applications was
understo o d and interaction mo deling formed an additional requirement. To o er suitable supp ort for
multimedia applications the developmentofmultimedia do cument mo dels b egan. On the one side stan-
dardization activities started and on the other side commercial to ols were evolving. The development
and the passing of standards to ok quite a long time, while in the meantime very sophisticated commercial
multimedia authoring to ols came to the market that supp ort their own proprietary format and only by
now start to cross the bridge to do cument standards.
However, we think that the standards and the commercial to ols develop ed so far only partially o er
the necessary prerequisites for multimedia do cument mo deling as \next generation" multimedia applica-
tions extend the requirements given ab oveby far: demand for reusability of the media including entire
do cuments and parts of do cuments, mo deling of adaptation to user sp eci c needs and context-dep endent,
ne-grained re-usage of the multimedia material, and wide-spread use in the Internet.
Whydowe consider these to b e the new requirements to multimedia do cuments? As authoring of
multimedia information is a very time consuming and costly task the reuse of material is de nitely of
high interest simply from an economical p oint of view. But reuse by means of \cut and paste" obviously
can not b e a solution, rather distinct and ne-grained reuse of multimedia content is highly demanded.
Personalization and adaptation of information systems to p ersonal needs and p ersonal interests b ecome
more and more imp ortant e.g., [Bul98] . The trend to o er a user the most suitable and narrowed down
multimedia information can b e seen in research prototyp es from di erent research areas, e.g., a user
adaptive diagram assistant [C-L98], an adaptive tutorial agent [SSW98], adaptive textb o oks on the WWW
[EBS97], p ersonalized news pap er [KBA93], p ersonalized delivery of news [KLAV98], etc. Personalization
and adaptation in consequence calls for the enhancementofmultimedia content with metadata to allow
for the targeted context-sp eci c selection of multimedia content. Another new requirement to a do cument 1
mo del is its Internet-applicability, i.e., how it can cop e with the demands of the heterogeneous environment
of the Internet.
1
Within our pro ject \Gallery of Cardiac Surgery" Cardio-OP , that aims at the developmentofan
Internet-based and database-driven multimedia information system in the domain of cardiac surgery,
we nd a representative application that explicitly requires a mo del for multimedia material which can
b e extensively reused in di erent context. Based on a multimedia content rep ository, the system is
going to serve as a common information and education base for its di erenttyp es of users, physicians,
medical lecturers, students, and patients, who are provided with multimedia information according to
their user sp eci c request to the multimedia information system, their di erent understanding of the
selected sub ject, their lo cation and technical infrastructure. For example, a high qualitymultimedia
presentation dynamically comp osed during a lecture at the university campus should b e available for
students at home for revise although they do not need the high quality of videos or images at home.
Therefore, either the multimedia material must b e delivered to the student with a lower quality and
lower bitrate or high data volume parts like video are replaced by \comparable" but less voluminous
parts like a slide show.
Toachieve this kind of functionality, a suitable multimedia do cument mo del that allows for exible and
context-dep endent reuse of a multimedia do cument and parts of it is needed. On our way to such a \next
generation" multimedia do cument mo del we rst tracked down and identi ed the advanced requirements
lo oking at up coming advanced applications like Cardio-OP. When investigating the applicability of the
existing mo dels HTML, HyTime, MHEG, and SMIL we, unfortunately, nd serious limitations and
drawbacks. It is quite a challenge to push these limits and to de ne a multimedia do cument mo del
providing mo deling primitives that go b eyond those found in existing mo dels. An example for sucha
mo del is Z X , presented in [BK99].
Y
The implications of approaches trying to resolve the shortcomings of existing mo dels are manyfold:
There arises an urgent need for suitable authoring systems that supp ort ne-grained reuse of multimedia
content, adaptability of content to user needs and individual interest, and, as a direct consequence, the
presentation-neutral representation of material, e.g., in a database. The latter is an analogue to the
principle of data indep endence of applications well-known from database systems. What is known as
data indep endence for \traditional" applications must b e enhanced by presentation indep endence for
multimedia applications. In addition, presentation-neutral representation of multimedia content directly
impacts the design of presentation to ols, since these have to \deliver" exibility and adaptability to end
users.
In this pap er, we give a motivation towards the development of next generation multimedia do cument
mo dels likeZ X [BK99] by identifying advanced application requirements, analyzing existing do cument
Y
mo dels showing the limits of current approaches, and calling for a concerted action on developing next
generation authoring and management to ols for advanced multimedia applications.
The remainder of the pap er is organized as follows: Section 2 presents the new requirements for
multimedia do cument mo dels. Section 3 intro duces the reader to the di erent mo dels for multimedia
do cuments we compare in this pap er, HTML, SMIL, MHEG-5, HyTime, and Z X. Section 4 presents
Y
the comparison of the mo dels along the requirements identi ed in Section 2. The pap er concludes with
an re ection of the analysis and p oints the way to the future of multimedia do cument mo dels.
2 Requirements to Next Generation Multimedia Do cumentMod-
els
In this section, we identify requirements to multimedia do cument mo dels. These can b e divided into
traditional requirements, whichwe consider to b e imp erative for anymultimedia do cument mo del, and
advanced requirements, whichwe exp ect to b e demanded more and more by future multimedia appli-
cations. The availabilityofa temporal model,aspatial model,aswell as supp ort for the mo deling of
interaction are traditional requirements while reusability of multimedia do cument content, adaptation
1
Cardio-OP - Gallery of Cardiac Surgery - is partially funded by the German Ministry of Research and Education,
grantnumb er 08C58456. Our pro ject partners are the University Hospital of Ulm, Dept. of Cardiac Surgery and Dept.
of Cardiology, the University Hospital of Heidelb erg, Dept. of Cardiac Surgery, an asso ciated Rehabilitation Hospital, the
publishers Barth-Verlag and dpunkt-Verlag, Heidelb erg, FAW Ulm, and ENTEC GmbH, St. Augustin. For details see also
URL www.informatik.uni-ulm.de/dbis/Cardio-OP/ 2
to user sp eci c needs, and presentation-neutral representation of multimedia do cument content are ad-
vanced requirements. Each of these requirements is motivated and illustrated in its di erent facettes in
the following subsections. The requirements form a metric along which selected multimedia do cument
mo dels are analyzed in Section 4.
2.1 Temp oral mo del
As the presentation of multimedia do cuments is time-dep endent, one of the basic requirements to a
multimedia do cument mo del is the mo deling of the temp oral course of the presentation. Thus, a temp oral
mo del must b e provided to describ e temp oral dep endencies b etween the media elements that a multimedia
do cument comprises. We nd three typ es of temp oral mo dels: point-based temp oral mo dels, interval-based
temp oral mo dels and event-based temp oral mo dels.
In the p oint-based mo del the temp oral extent of each media element in the multimedia do cumentis
mo deled by points in time. These determine at which p oint in time on the time axis the presentation
of a media element starts, and ends resp ectively.For anytwo p oints in time one of the relationships
before < , after > , or equals = holds. This is a simple representation of time with a small number of
temp oral relationships.
Existing representations of temp oral asp ects in the context of multimedia presentations are mainly
based on some or all of the 13 binary temp oral relations b etween time intervals as de ned by Allen [All83].
These mo dels, however, do not supp ort time intervals of unknown duration that o ccur, for instance, in
the context of user interaction in multimedia presentations e.g., Ob ject Comp osition Petri Nets OCPN
[LG93] . Therefore, enhanced interval-based temp oral mo dels have b een prop osed to handle op en time
intervals and inde nite interval relationships [DK95, HFK95, WR94].
In an event-based mo del of time, events determine the temp oral course of the presentation. An event
is connected to actions and when an event o ccurs, e.g., a video reaches a certain p oint in time, the
corresp onding actions, typically start and stop of the presentation of other media elements, is carried
out.
Another way to sp ecify temp oral relations b etween media elements is by the use of scripts { programs
written in a scripting language which can comprise temp oral op erations. If the scripting language forms
a complete programming language, this mechanism allows for very complex and p owerful sp eci cations
of temp oral dep endencies b etween media elements.
2.2 Spatial Mo del
If a presentation consists of visual media elements, not only the temp oral synchronization of these elements
is of interest but also their spatial p ositioning on the presentation media e.g., a window . This p ositioning
can b e sp eci ed by the use of a spatial mo del. In general, three approaches to spatial mo dels can b e
distinguished: absolute positioning, directional relations, and topological relations.
With absolute p ositioning the media element is placed on the presentation area at a xed absolute
position sp eci ed by a co ordinate pair. To handle overlapping, a third value maybeintro duced by which
the ordering of overlapping media elements is de ned.
A more exible way to de ne the spatial p ositioning of visual media elements is the sp eci cation of
directional relations [PTSE95, PS94], like north, north-west etc. At a ner granularity,byintro ducing re-
lations like strong-north and weak-north to sp ecify overlapping, 169 di erent directional relations b etween
two rectangles in 2D space can b e distinguished [PTSE95].
Another way to de ne spatial relationships is by the use of top ological relations [EF91]. Between any
two continuous region ob jects, the following eight top ological relations can b e distinguished: disjoint,
meet, overlap, covers, covered-by, contains, inside, and equal.
2.3 Interaction
A distinct feature of a multimedia do cument mo del is the ability to sp ecify user interaction in order to
let a user cho ose b etween di erent presentation paths. Multimedia do cuments without user interaction
are not very interesting as the course of their presentation is exactly known in advance and, hence, could
b e recorded as a movie. For the mo deling of user interaction, one can identify at least two basic typ es of
interaction: navigational interactions, design interactions. 3
With navigational interactions a user can determine the owofamultimedia presentation. An example
is the selection of a link or an item from a menu to decide which presentation path is to b e followed.
Design interactions in uence the visual and audible layout of a presentation. Examples are the
adjustmentofspeaker volume, fonts, scaling of images, and the like.
2.4 Reusability
As motivated in the intro duction, reusabilityofmultimedia content is a desired feature of a next gen-
eration multimedia do cument mo del. Reusability of do cument content can b e characterized along three
dimensions: the granularity of reuse, the kind of reuse, and the selection and identi cation of reusable
comp onents.
Granularity: The granularity of reuse determines what can b e reused. Regarding multimedia do cument
mo dels, we can distinguish at least three levels of granularity of reusable comp onents: reuse of complete
multimedia documents, reuse of fragments of multimedia do cuments like single scenes or chapters, and
reuse of individual atomic media elements such as a video or audio.
Kind of re-usage: For all three levels of granularitywe distinguish b etween di erentways of how to
reuse material for the comp osition of new do cuments: identical re-usage, i.e., the comp onents are reused
including all temp oral, spatial, design and interaction relationships and constraints as originally sp eci ed
by the author s , and structural re-usage, i.e., we separate the layout from the structure of comp onents
and reuse only the structural parts.
Selection and identi cation: Before we can reuse comp onents wehaveto identify and select them
within an information system. This calls for metadata and a mechanism for classifying, indexing, and
querying comp onents. Hence, a do cument mo del should provide supp ort for annotation of reusable
comp onents with metadata.
2.5 Adaptation
Presentation of multimedia do cuments preferably dep ends on the user context and hence, the multimedia
presentation needs to b e adapted to this user context. But it is also of interest whether all p ossible
adaptation alternatives are to b e known and mo deled at authoring time of a multimedia do cumentorif
they are left for evaluation at the actual presentation time.
Parameters of adaptability: For the user context, we distinguish b etween adaptation to personal
interest and adaptation to technical infrastructure. Consider a professor on campus who is interested to
see in-depth multimedia material on coronary artery bypass grafting, and an undergraduate studentat
home who needs to get only an abstraction of the same material. In the example the presentation needs to
b e adapted to the p ersonal interest, here identi ed by p ersonal interest \coronary artery bypass grafting"
and professional level \professor" and \student". In addition to this kind of semantic adaptation of
multimedia do cuments, the multimedia presentation can b e adapted according to the technical capabilities
of the environment a user is working in, i.e., \on campus", \at home". The professor may run a high
quality presentation on the university campus providing excellent network bandwidth and computer
power, whereas the student can view the presentation at home where he do es not have the same excellent
technical prerequisites. A do cument mo del supp orts these typ es of adaptation if it can supp ort the
mo deling of user-sp eci c and system-sp eci c parameters as \input parameters" for adaptation suciently.
De nition of presentation alternatives: Dep ending on when the di erent \alternatives" are de ned
that can b e exploited for adaptation, we distinguish b etween static adaptation and dynamic adaptation.
With static adaptation the adaptable alternatives must b e known and included in the do cumentat
authoring time. Whereas for dynamic adaptation the available alternatives are determined due to the
sp eci c context at presentation time. One could therefore say that mo dels that allow static and/or
dynamic adaptation allows for \early and/or late adaptation binding". 4
2.6 Presentation-neutral Representation
Reuse of multimedia content in di erent context do es not mean that the material is presented always
identically. Rather reuse of contentmay require structural reuse of material and assignment of di erent
visual and audible layout according to the context. In addition, advanced distributed multimedia applica-
tions often face a heterogeneous environment with regard to op erating systems and hardware platforms.
It is desirable that the multimedia material of such an application can b e presented within this hetero-
geneous environment with minimal implementation e ort. Thus, it makes p erfect sense to try to reuse
existing presentation software, e.g., HTML browsers, MHEG engines, on these systems.
As a consequence, the multimedia material has to b e mo deled in a presentation-neutral way, i.e.,
indep endent of the actual realization layout of a presentation. This is a challenging problem as it calls
for automatic conversion of the multimedia do cument mo del used for the presentation-neutral description
of multimedia contentinto the multimedia do cument mo del used for presentation of the multimedia
content. In general, two ma jor characteristics in uence the convertabilitybetween multimedia do cument
mo dels: multimedia functionality and semantic level of a mo del [RvOB97].
Multimedia functionality: The multimedia functionalityofa multimedia do cument mo del describ es
the expressiveness of its mo deling primitives. In a conversion pro cess, this means that if the target
do cument mo del do es not o er an equivalentmultimedia functionality as o ered by the source mo del,
the conversion will b e lossy.
Semantic level: The semantic level of a multimedia do cument mo del plays an imp ortant role for the
automatic conversion for presentation. If the target do cument mo del of such a conversion provides a
semantic description of multimedia content on a high level, i.e., rather description of structure than
description of presentation, higher than the source do cument mo del, the conversion requires the analysis
of the do cument sp eci ed in the source mo del and the derivation of its semantics for its enco ding in
the target mo del. In general, this requires knowledge ab out the multimedia content that often only the
author will have. In these cases, automatic conversion will not b e p ossible. However, the automatic
conversion of a multimedia do cument represented on a high level of semantics into a mo del based on a
comprehensive set of low level semantic constructs can b e p erformed much easier. In order to avoid the
problems of automatic conversion, the presentation-neutral representation of multimedia content should
{ b esides the coverage of richmultimedia functionality { take place on a high level of semantics.
3 Existing Multimedia Do cument Mo dels
In this section, we brie y present the most imp ortant and relevant existing standards and data mo dels for
multimedia do cuments. We giveanintro duction to the existing do cument mo dels HTML, SMIL, MHEG-
5, HyTime, and also to Z X, an example for a mo del o ering more advanced mo deling primitives. These
Y
mo dels will b e analyzed and compared along the requirements of the previous section in Section 4.
3.1 HTML
The Hyp ertext Markup Language HTML [RLJ98] is based on SGML [ISO86] and de nes a syntax
to enrich text pages with structural information using SGML elements.For instance, elements can b e
inserted into the text to organize it into paragraphs, to mark headings of di erent levels, to de ne tables,
and to de ne quotations. Furthermore, it is p ossible to include various kinds of ob jects like media elements
e.g, images, videos and audio tracks , Java applets, ActiveX comp onents, and scripts. In addition to
that, HTML allows for the de nition of hyperlinks between do cuments. These hyp erlinks are means to
de ne interactions, i.e., an interaction e.g., a mouse click with the link anchor results in the presentation
of the do cument sp eci ed by the link target. Scripts, applets, and ActiveX comp onents included with
a do cument are executed at presentation time by the presentation environment, the so-called HTML
browser software.However, the HTML standard do es neither de ne syntax nor semantics of the scripting
languages, so presentation b ehaviour of a HTML page that includes scripts dep ends on the employed
browser software.
There are e orts of the large HTML browser software vendors Netscap e and Microsoft to allow for the
manipulation of the structure, layout, and content of a HTML do cument with scripting languages. Thus, 5
scripts can dynamically manipulate HTML do cuments, a technique which is also called Dynamic HTML
DHTML . The price for this increased exibility is that p ortability problems arise due to di erences
between the scripting languages employed by Microsoft and Netscap e.
3.2 SMIL
+
The Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language SMIL [HBB 98] is a W3C standard which aims
at synchronized multimedia presentations on the web. A SMIL do cument provides synchronization of
continuous media elements and constitutes an integrated presentation. SMIL is de ned by an XML DTD
[BPSM98] and, hence, the language can b e understo o d as a set of element de nitions sp eci ed in terms
of XML. SMIL de nes schedule elements to describ e temp oral synchronization b etween media elements.
Furthermore, the spatial layout of the media elements can b e de ned. SMIL also allows to sp ecify links
between do cuments or parts of do cuments which are equivalent to HTML links. An interesting feature of
SMIL is the switch element which is a simple means for mo deling alternatives in the course and qualityof
a presentation. With the help of switch elements, an author can sp ecify di erent presentation alternatives
among which one is chosen at presentation time due to external parameters.
3.3 MHEG-5 and MHEG-6
MHEG-5 [ISO95, JR95] is an adaptation of the MHEG-1 Standard [MBE95] to the needs of video-on-
demand and kiosk applications for set-top-b oxes and low-end PC. MHEG-5 enco des applications in their
nal form and aims at an ecient realization of MHEG-1 attracting the interest of telecommunication
and entertainment industry in this standard. MHEG-5 provides an ob ject-oriented data mo del for mul-
timedia do cuments. The standard de nes a hierarchyofMHEG-5 classes. This hierarchy comprises
classes for various uses. For example, there are classes that represent media elements like videos and
audios, classes that representinteraction elements like buttons, and even classes that provide variable
functionality of programming languages. Classes p ossess attributes, can p erform actions which closely
resemble metho ds in ob ject-oriented programming languages , and re events. An MHEG-5 do cument
is a collection of instances of these classes organized in scenes which are the main structural primitives.
A scene corresp onds to a \page" on a screen and, hence, only one scene can b e presented at a time. In
addition to that, each MHEG-5 do cument features one instance of the class Application de ning the
entry p oint for do cument's presentation. Moreover, this application ob ject can contain ob jects which are
global to every scene. The presentation b ehaviour of an MHEG-5 do cument is de ned by the means of
links which resemble event-condition-action rules.
MHEG-6 [ISO96, Hof96] is an extension of MHEG-5 that intro duces an interface b etween an MHEG-
5 engine and a Java Virtual Machine. With MHEG-6, it is p ossible to include Java programs into an
MHEG-5 do cument. Such a program has access to the ob jects of the do cument and, hence, can in uence
its presentation b ehaviour.
3.4 HyTime
HyTime [ISO92, DD94, NKN91] is a standard which allows for the description of the structure of mul-
timedia do cuments. Based on SGML [ISO86], HyTime provides a well-de ned set of primitives which
allows for the interlinking of media ob jects without sp ecifying the enco ding of the media ob jects. The
primitives provided by HyTime are o ered by means of architectural forms and are organized in terms
of mo dules. Architectural Forms AF are HyTime elements with pre-de ned multimedia semantics and
attributes. An AF can b e used in any SGML DTD by extending an SGML elementtyp e by an attribute
HyTime b earing the name of the AF to b e used. In that way, the elementtyp e inherits the semantics and
attributes of the AF.
The mo dules of HyTime Base-Mo dule, which de nes the basic concepts of HyTime, the Lo cation-
Address-Mo dule, which implements the p owerful construct of Locators providing an abstract mechanism
for addressing external do cument ob jects, the Hyp erlink-Mo dule, which implements the concept of links,
the Finite-Co ordinate-Space-Mo dule, which provides means for the synchronized presentation of media
ob jects based on n-dimensional coordinate spaces, the Event-Pro jection-Mo dule, which allows to trans-
form eventschedules de ning the temp oral execution of a presentation, and the Ob ject-Mo di cation-
Mo dule, which allows to transform presentation ob jects, e.g., fading. 6
3.5 Z X
Y
The Z Xmultimedia do cument mo del [BK99] has b een develop ed by our group in the context of the
Y
Cardio-OP pro ject which aims at the development of a database-driven multimedia information system
with sp ecial needs for reusability, adaptation, interaction, and presentation-neutral description of multi-
media content. Z X describ es complete or fragments of multimedia do cuments by the means of a tree
Y
for an illustration, see Figure 1 . The no des of the tree are called presentation elements. Each presen-
tation has got a binding point asso ciated with it. Such a binding p oint can b e b ound to one variable
of another presentation element, thus creating the edges of the tree. The presentation elements are the
generic elements of the mo del. They can represent atomic media elements e.g., videos, images and
text or more complex comp ositions of media elements. Another group of presentation elements combine
presentation elements with certain semantics, the operator elements. There are op erator elements that
allow for temp oral synchronization, de nition of interaction, adaptation, and for the spatial, audible, and
visible layout the so-called projector elements of the do cument.
It is p ossible to delay the pro cess of variable binding by leaving variables unb ound. This allows
for the de nition of templates which can b e customized to a sp eci c problem at a later p oint in time.
Furthermore, a tree can b e encapsulated bya complex media element which can then b e used in other
trees see Figure 2 likeany other presentation element. Unb ound variables of an encapsulated tree are
exp orted by the complex media element allowing for the encapsulation of templates. Thus, a complex
media element is somehow a blackbox view of a Z X tree. Y
template seq
v1 v2 v3 v4
seq
v1v2 v3 v4 v5 Video par seq v5 v6 v7 v8
Audio Text Slide 1 Slide 2 Slide 3
Legend: Presentation Binding point element complex media element Binding edge
v1 Variable v4v5 v7
Figure 1: A sample Z X tree in graphical notation Figure 2: Template encapsulated by a complex me-
Y
dia element in graphical notation
4 Analysis
In this section, we analyze how the multimedia do cument mo dels intro duced in the previous section ful ll
the requirements outlined in Section 2. First, weinvestigate the do cument mo dels HTML, MHEG-5, Hy-
Time, SMIL, and Z X with resp ect to the traditional requirements, i.e., their temp oral and spatial mo del,
Y
and their interaction mo deling. Then, we examine how these mo dels b ehave concerning the advanced
requirements reusability, adaptation, and presentation-neutral description for do cument content. Figure
4 illustrates the summary of this analysis. 7
4.1 Temp oral Mo del
HTML: As HTML has b een develop ed for Hyp ertext, the standard itself do es not o er constructs to
sp ecify temp oral synchronization b etween the media elements included in a HTML do cument. However,
by the use of DHTML, the temp oral course of a presentation can b e programmed in a scripting language.
Recently, there has b een a prop osal by Microsoft for adding temp oral synchronization supp ort to HTML
called HTML+TIME [SYS98]. This approachintegrates HTML with the temp oral mo deling mechanisms
intro duced by SMIL but it do es not seem to b e very mature, yet.
MHEG-5: MHEG-5 sp eci es the temp oral course of a presentation by means of its link concept.
Presentable MHEG classes e.g., the video and audio classes de ne a varietyofevents relating to time.
These events can b e asso ciated via links with actions which are p erformed when the corresp onding event
o ccurs. Thus, the temp oral mo del of MHEG-5 is event-based.
HyTime: In HyTime, the co ordinated presentation of media elements can b e sp eci ed using the Finite-
Co ordinate-Space mo dule. This mo dule provides a means to de ne n-dimensional co ordinate spaces which
can include time dimensions. Into such a co ordinate space, media elements can b e placed. This placement
is called event and exactly de nes the p oint in the co ordinate space where the media element asso ciated
with the event will b e presented. Hence, the temp oral mo del of HyTime is p oint-based. Several events can
b e group ed to an event schedule which describ es the course of the presentation of a HyTime do cument.
SMIL: SMIL follows an interval-based approach to temp oral synchronization. Each media element has
an asso ciated presentation interval. These intervals can b e co ordinated by the use of schedule elements.
In general, SMIL de nes two kinds of schedule elements. On the one hand, there is the paral lel element
which de nes the parallel presentation of n intervals. Using attributes, a more detailed de nition of
a parallel presentation is p ossible. For instance, time delays, lipsync synchronization, and lo ops can
b e sp eci ed. On the other hand, SMIL provides the sequential element which allows for the sequential
presentation of n intervals. Again, a more detailed sp eci cation of this presentation is p ossible with the
help of element attributes. The di erentschedule elements can b e nested, thus allowing for the mo deling
of complex temp oral relations.
Z X: The temp oral mo del of Z X is closely related to the temp oral mo del of SMIL. Z X de nes the
Y Y Y
temp oral op erator elements seq and par which resemble the parallel and sequential elements of SMIL.
In contrast to SMIL, lo ops and time delays are not sp eci ed using attributes. Instead, these are handled
byown temp oral op erator elements, the l oop op erator element and the del ay temp oral op erator element.
Due to its close resemblance to SMIL, the Z X temp oral mo del must b e considered as interval-based.
Y
4.2 Spatial Mo del
HTML: The control of the spatial layout of the media elements included in a HTML do cumentis
very limited. However, the concept of framesets allows to partition the presentation area of an HTML
do cument i.e., the HTML browser window into rectangular regions, so-called frames. In such a frame,
another HTML do cument can b e displayed which itself can de ne further frames. This allows for frame
nesting. As frames are sp eci ed by their size and p osition this constitutes a kind of absolute p ositioning.
Exact p ositioning of media elements is p ossible by the use of DHTML. Scripts can set and mo dify the
co ordinates at which a media element is presented in the browser window. Hence, D HTML o ers
absolute p ositioning.
MHEG-5: Each MHEG-5 class that represents visual media elements provides attributes de ning the
co ordinates of the presentation area at which the visual media element has to b e presented. By the use
of the link concept, these co ordinates can b e set and changed as the result of events. This is a kind of
absolute p ositioning.
HyTime: As mentioned ab ove, the Finite-Co ordinate-Space mo dule provides means to sp ecify the
course of the presentation of a HyTime do cumentby the means of eventschedules referring to n-
dimensional co ordinate spaces. Such a co ordinate space can include, b esides a temp oral dimension, 8
one or more spatial dimensions. Thus, an event not only describ es the p oint in time at which the asso ci-
ated media element will b e presented but also the spatial p osition. Therefore, HyTime allows for absolute
p ositioning.
SMIL: SMIL provides a mechanism to allow for the absolute spatial p ositioning of media elements.
In the head of a SMIL do cument, rectangular regions of the presentation area can b e sp eci ed, called
channels. Eachchannel is de ned by its p osition, its size, and a value which is used to de ne the order
of overlapping channels. Each media element in the do cument b o dy can reference a channel thereby
sp ecifying its spatial p osition on the presentation area.
Z X: Spatial layout in Z X is de ned by the use of spatial pro jector elements. A spatial pro jector
Y Y
element de nes the rectangular region of the presentation area in which the subtree b elow the spatial
pro jector element is presented. Likechannels in SMIL, such a region is de ned by its p osition, size, and
avalue to resolveoverlapping of regions. Spatial pro jector elements can b e nested. A spatial pro jector
element p in the subtree under spatial pro jector element o is seen in the context of o and not the entire
presentation area. All in all, Z X employs absolute p ositioning to sp ecify spatial layout of a do cument.
Y
4.3 Interaction
HTML: HTML provides the concept of links which allows for navigational interaction. Moreover,
HTML allows for the de nition of data entry forms which consist of di erent controls like buttons and
text-input elds. The results of an interaction with a form cannot b e sp eci ed using HTML itself. This is
left to CGI scripts running at a web server. However, if the employed browser software supp orts DHTML,
more sophisticated interactions like design interactions can b e programmed using scripts.
MHEG-5: MHEG-5 provides a small set of basic interaction classes for the mo deling of user interaction.
MHEG-5 separates the element that initiates an interaction from the e ect of an interaction. By the
de nition of links, the interaction with an interaction element such as a button can trigger an action
resulting in a navigational or in a design interaction. Since MHEG-6 allows for the integration of Java
programs, it can supp ort additional, sophisticated user interactions.
HyTime: As explained ab ove, the Finite-Co ordinate-Space mo dule of HyTime provides mechanisms
to de ne the spatial and temp oral co ordination of a presentation. This is done byeventschedules
which require to know all spatial and temp oral p ositions of media ob jects in advance. This excludes ad-
ho c navigational interaction by the user. HyTime do es not supp ort design interactions as the primitives
provided by the Ob ject-Mo di cation-Mo dule and the Event-Pro jection-Mo dule do not include interaction
semantics.
SMIL: The concept of links in SMIL provides for navigational interaction. But no supp ort is given for
the sp eci cation of design interactions.
Z X: The requirement to supp ort the mo deling of interactivemultimedia presentations is met byZ X's
Y Y
interaction elements. There are twotyp es of interaction elements, navigational interaction elements and
design interaction elements. Examples for navigational interaction elements are the link element that
allows to sp ecify hyp ertext structure as in SMIL or HTML and the menu element with which one can
interactively follow one path out of a set of presentations paths. The design interaction elements are
interactiveversions of the pro jector elements. For example, for the typ ographic pro jector that allows
to sp ecify font, size and style of a text, the interactive typographic projector element sp eci es that these
settings can b e carried out interactively when the do cument is presented.
4.4 Reusability
HTML: HTML allows to reference whole do cuments and single media elements via uniform resource
locators URL .However, it is not p ossible to reference just a fragment of a do cument. Thus, reusability
is only supp orted on the highest and lowest level of granularity as identi ed in Section 2. 9
As there is no clear distinction b etween structure and layout of an HTML do cument, hence, reuse
can only b e identical. Although HTML 4.0 tries to separate structure from the layout of a do cumentin
a more rigid way and promotes the use of external cascading style sheets, it is still p ossible to mix layout
and structure for backward compatibility reasons.
In order to supp ort classi cation and identi cation of do cuments, HTML allows for the sp eci cation
meta attributes by means of attribute-value pairs in the head of a do cument.
MHEG-5: Considering the granularity of reuse, it is imp ortant to notice that MHEG-5 structures the
media elements of an application into groups which can b e addressed globally. Hence, groups constitute
the units which can b e reused. As an application ob ject is a group, it is p ossible to reuse entire MHEG-5
do cuments within an MHEG-5 do cument. Likewise, scenes are MHEG-5 groups and, hence, could b e
reused in principal. Since scenes can refer to ob jects global to an MHEG-5 do cument which are contained
in the application ob ject, it is not p ossible to reuse scenes which dep end on such global ob jects. Only
fully indep endent and isolated scenes could b e candidates for re-usage in other do cuments. Therefore,
there is no general supp ort for reusability at the level of do cument fragments. Regarding the reusability
at the level of mere media elements like videos, audios , it is imp ortant to know that a media element
must b e asso ciated to exactly one group and is addressed through this group. Thus, it is not p ossible to
use one and the same media elementintwo di erent scenes. However, as media elements do not haveto
include the underlying data but also just can refer to their data, groups can share at least the data of
media elements.
Since MHEG-5 aims less at mo deling the structure of a multimedia application but at representing
its nal presentation form, which includes the layout, groups can only b e reused identically.
The identi cation and selection of groups to b e reused is a serious problem in MHEG-5 as no in-
formation can b e assigned to MHEG ob jects. One can use neither annotations, keywords, or any other
kind of metadata for classi cation of and search for media ob jects, nor semantically useful names for the
identi cation of parts to b e reused.
HyTime: HyTime allows for reusability on all levels of granularity as identi ed in the requirements
section. As HyTime is built on SGML, single media elements and complete do cuments can b e referenced as
entities and therefore b e reused. Moreover, the Lo cation-Address-Mo dule provides p owerful mechanisms
to lo cate and address fragments of HyTime do cuments. Using locators, parts of a HyTime do cument can
b e referenced by name, p osition, or even by the use of a p owerful query language.
As any SGML DTD can b e made HyTime-compliant, HyTime do cuments describ e rather the structure
of a do cument than its presentation semantics. Thus, reuse in HyTime is semantic reuse.
Moreover, b ecause HyTime is indep endent of a DTD, a DTD can b e provided with supp ort for
classi cation of parts of do cuments, e.g., by the use of attribute-value pairs. Hence, HyTime o ers
supp ort for classi cation and identi cation of reusable comp onents.
SMIL: As SMIL can reference complete do cuments and single media elements by the use of URL, SMIL
allows for reuse at the according levels of granularity as de ned in Section 2. However, SMIL do es not
supp ort the reuse of fragments of do cuments.
SMIL separates layout sp eci cations, whichhave togointo the head of the do cument, from the
structural sp eci cations given in the b o dy. But as b oth kinds of sp eci cations are closely interrelated,
SMIL provides only for identical reuse.
Like HTML, SMIL allows to de ne meta-attributes within the head element of a do cument. Such meta-
attributes can b e used to classify and retrieve do cuments providing supp ort for selection and identi cation.
Z X: The Z X do cument mo del has b een designed with all levels of granularity of reuse in mind. To
Y Y
supp ort reusability of media elements, atomic media elements are provided which can b e reused in any
Z X sp eci cation. Likewise, complex media elements which encapsulate sp eci cations can b e reused in
Y
any other sp eci cation. As the encapsulated sp eci cations can smo othly range from small logical parts
of a do cumenttoentire do cuments, Z X supp orts reuse b oth on the level of entire do cuments and ne-
Y
grained do cument fragments. Moreover, the ability to encapsulate templates in complex media elements
provides for the reuse of do cument templates.
The ability to delay the pro cess of variable binding, esp ecially the binding of pro jector variables,
allows for the clear separation of the presentation elements building the structure of a do cument and the 10
pro jector elements determining its layout. This allows for structural reuse of Z X sp eci cations. As Z X
Y Y
complex media elements may include pro ject elements de ning visual and audible layout this provides
for identical reuse of comp onents.
Concerning selection and identi cation of reusable elements, Z X allows media elements, either com-
Y
plex or atomic, to b e annotated with key-value pairs.
4.5 Adaptation
HTML: Since HTML do es not o er any mechanism to sp ecify adaptation of a do cument to user interest
or to technical infrastructure, we consider only DHMTL here. DHTML o ers to dynamically manipulate
the structure and content of HTML do cuments. Therefore, adaptation to user interest or technical
infrastructure can b e implemented by the use of scripts. In a rst step, such a script has to determine
the user or system pro le, for example by a database query. In the second step, the script has to change
the structure of the HTML do cument according to the pro le. As the author must co de and thus know
at authoring time all adaptation alternatives inside scripts, this kind of adaptation must b e considered
as static.
MHEG-5: MHEG-5 de nes classes for variables whose contents can b e tested. Hence, variables can
b e used to cho ose b etween di erent branches of a presentation. Thus, a pro le de ning user interest and
technical infrastructure could b e mo deled using variables. However, the problem is how such a pro le
is set. MHEG-5 allows to set variables only from within a do cument. User-sp eci c adaptation would
require to make the determination of the pro le a part of the MHEG-5 do cument. In MHEG-6, the
MHEG engine could call a Java program which retrieves the actual values for a given pro le and then
sets the variables of the do cument. So, with the use of MHEG-6, adaptation of a presentation to user
interest or technical infrastructure is p ossible. Since all adaptation alternatives must b e sp eci ed within
a do cument at authoring time, this is static adaptation.
HyTime: Since HyTime can b e used with any concrete DTD, it is always p ossible to de ne sp eci c
attributes with elements of a DTD that characterize parts of do cuments or media elements in terms
of user interest or technical prop erties like bandwidth needed, resolution or frame rate required. It is
also p ossible to check for values of such element attributes by using the Query-Lo cator provided by
the Lo cation-Address-Mo dule. But all the results of such queries checking attribute values are fully
determined by the concrete do cument content and cannot b e mo di ed by external parameters like those
in a user or system pro le. Hence, it is not p ossible to adapt a HyTime do cument according to external
parameters like a pro le.
SMIL: SMIL o ers the switch element to mo del alternative presentation variants. Using this element,
di erent adaptation alternatives can b e sp eci ed inside the do cument at authoring time. Thus, the switch
element allows for static adaptation. The selection of the alternatives is guided by simple predicates which
include parameters set outside the SMIL do cument. These parameters are prede ned by the standard and
describ e mainly technical features like the available bandwidth. This allows to adapt a SMIL do cument
to technical infrastructure.
Z X: As mentioned ab ove, each media elementofaZ X do cument can b e annotated with a set of
Y Y
key-value pairs that describ es its content. In addition to that a user pro le, also key-value pairs, can
b e de ned to capture values that describ e a user's topics of interest, presentation system environment,
network connection characteristics and the like. The Z X mo del o ers op erator elements to supp ort
Y
adaptation to a user's pro le by means of switch elements and the query elements.
Like in SMIL, a switch element allows to sp ecify di erent presentation alternatives for a part of the
do cument allowing for static adaptation. One of the alternatives is selected corresp onding to the user
pro le. In contrast to SMIL, the scop e of a switch statement is not limited to prede ned parameters. A
switch element is used if all adaptation alternatives are known to the author of a do cument. In order
to allow for dynamic adaptation, the query elementisprovided. This element is a placeholder for a
media element or fragment which is describ ed by the means of a query. The query is represented bya
set of key-value pairs. When the do cument is selected for presentation the query elementisevaluated 11
and replaced by the complex or atomic media element with b est matching the set of key-value pairs with
regard to the user pro le. Thus, Z X allows for adaptation to user interest and system structure.
Y
4.6 Presentation-neutral Representation
Figure 3 shows the relationships b etween various formats and mo dels with resp ect to their supp ort for
multimedia and for presentation-neutral representation.
HyTime
ZYX
HTML SMIL Semantic level MHEG-5
DHTML
Multimedia functionality
Figure 3: Presentation-neutral representation and multimedia supp ort of the di erent formats and mo dels
HTML: As HTML do es not clearly separate the layout of a do cument from its structure, the seman-
tic level of a HTML do cument description is not as high as HyTime though it is comparable to SMIL.
However, HTML o ers only an extremely limited multimedia functionality even simple temp oral syn-
chronization is not p ossible . To o er more multimedia functionality, DHTML must b e employed. Since
DHMTL scripts must imp eratively implementmultimedia functionality, their use extremely reduces the
semantic level of a do cument description. Furthermore DHTML intro duces p ortability problems b etween
browser vendors. Thus, neither HTML nor DHMTL are well suited for presentation-neutral representa-
tion of multimedia do cument content.
MHEG-5: MHEG-5 primarily aims at a detailed and platform indep endent description of a presenta-
tion, i.e., the layout, of a do cument. Toachieve this goal, the standard provides MHEG-5 with a rich
multimedia functionality.However, the description of the structure of an MHEG-5 do cumentisvery p o or.
Hence, the level of semantic mo deling is very low and if compared to the semantics of the structure of
multimedia do cuments MHEG-5 might b e viewed as a \multimedia-assembler". Hence, MHEG-5 cannot
supp ort presentation-neutral representation of multimedia do cuments.
HyTime: Since HyTime mainly sp eci es the structure and semantics of a multimedia do cumentitis
quite well-suited for presentation-neutral representation of multimedia do cuments. HyTime o ers sp eci-
cation of do cument content at a high semantic level though it lacks multimedia functionality esp ecially
in the area of interaction .
SMIL: In contrast to HyTime do cuments, a SMIL do cument describ es in detail the presentation of
the do cument but less detailed the structure of the do cument. However, SMIL o ers more multimedia
functionality than HyTime. Compared to MHEG-5, the description of SMIL do cuments takes place on
a higher level of semantics though lacking the multimedia functionality of MHEG-5. Hence, SMIL ranks
between HyTime and MHEG-5 with resp ect to its supp ort for presentation-neutral representation.
Z X: As it is p ossible to separate structure and layout of a do cument due to the ability to delay
Y
the pro cess of variable binding and to encapsulate templates in complex media elements, the semantic
level of a do cument description is quite high and thus suited for presentation-neutral representation of
multimedia do cument content. The amountofmultimedia functionality o ered byZ X exceeds SMIL
Y
but ranks b elow MHEG-5. 12 HTML DHTML SMIL MHEG-5 HyTime ZYX
Temporal Model - script interval- event- point- interval- based based based based
Spatial Model absolute absolute absolute absolute absolute absolute positioning positioning positioning positioning positioning positioning
Interaction Navigational ++++ - + Design -+-+ -+
Reusability Granularity Media Elements ++++ ++ Fragments ---- ++ Documents ++++ ++
Kind of Reusage Identical ++++ - + Structural ----++
Identification/Selection +++- ++
Adaptation Parameters of Adaptability User Interest -+-MHEG-6 -+ Technical Infrastructure -++MHEG-6 -+ Definition of Alternatives Static --++MHEG-6 -+ - Dynamic - --- -+ Presentation-neutral Representation Multimedia Functionality very lowhigh medium very high low high
Semantic Level mediumvery low medium low very high high
Figure 4: Summary of the supp ort of the requirements by D HTML, SMIL, MHEG-5, HyTime, and
Z X + supp ort, - no supp ort
Y
4.7 Summary
Summarizing see also Figure 4 , we can say that none of the examined do cument mo dels HTML, MHEG-
5, HyTime, and SMIL o ers sucient supp ort for all requirements arising from advanced multimedia
applications. HTML can hardly b e characterized as a multimedia do cument mo del b ecause it lacks
supp ort for even the most basic multimedia requirement, a temp oral mo del. Though HTML can b ecome
a quite p owerful multimedia do cument mo del by the extension to DHTML, it still lacks supp ort for
reuse at all levels of granularity and su ers from a low semantic level of content description which leaves
DHTML unsuitable for presentation-neutral description of multimedia content. This is also the case with
MHEG-5. Although MHEG-5 o ers a high multimedia functionality, it mainly describ es the presentation
and not the structure of a multimedia do cument and, therefore, cannot b e employed for presentation-
neutral mo deling of multimedia do cument content. Furthermore, reuse at the level of fragments is severely
hamp ered due to the un exible scene-based do cument structure.
Powerful supp ort for reuse is the strength of HyTime. Moreover, HyTime describ es do cument con-
tentatavery high semantical level and, thus, is p erfectly suited for presentation-neutral mo deling of
do cument content. However, the lacking capabilityofinteraction mo deling and mo deling of adaption is
a serious drawback. In contrast to HyTime, SMIL o ers the mo deling of static adaptation to technical
infrastructure and navigational interaction. Furthermore, the semantic level of a SMIL do cument descrip-
tion ranks b etween MHEG-5 and HyTime and, hence, is quite well suited for the presentation neutral
description of multimedia do cument content. However, reuse at the level of fragments is not p ossible as 13
is the mo deling of design interactions.
Since Z X has b een designed with the ful lment of the advanced requirements in mind, it o ers
Y
reuse on all three levels of granularity, static and dynamic adaptation to user sp eci c needs, a quite high
semantic level of do cument description, and presentation-neutral representation of multimedia content.
Regarding the traditional requirements, enough multimedia functionality has b een provided to allow for
interesting multimedia presentations including design interactions.
5 Conclusion and Future Work
Driven by our advanced multimedia information system application Cardio-OP,we rst have identi ed a
new set of requirements for multimedia do cument mo dels: reusability of multimedia content, adaptation of
multimedia content to user needs and interests, and presentation-neutral description of the structure and
contentofmultimedia do cuments. These requirements complement the more traditional requirements
for multimedia do cument mo dels, i.e., temp oral, spatial, and interaction mo deling, well known so far.
We then have presented an analysis of the relevant standard formats and mo dels, i.e., HTML, SMIL,
MHEG-5, HyTime, including the Z X mo del which has b een designed to meet the advanced requirements.
Y
Wehave presented the capabilities and identi ed the limitations of these mo dels. The shortcomings of
standards call for a new initiative for next generation multimedia do cument mo dels. As illustrated byZ X
Y
[BK99] it is very well p ossible to push the limits of existing approaches and to meet the new requirements.
Wewould liketopoint out that the implications of our analysis and of approaches trying to resolve
the shortcomings of existing mo dels are signi cant: There arises an urgent need for appropriate authoring
to ols that supp ort ne-grained reuse of multimedia content, adaptability of content to user needs and
individual interest, and, as a direct consequence, the presentation-neutral representation of material, e.g.,
in a database. When developing the multimedia content rep ository of Cardio-OP based on Z Xwe made
Y
this painful exp erience. Our group has already develop ed a DataBlade mo dule for the ob ject-relational
database system Informix Dynamic Server / Universal Data Option capable of managing Z X do cuments
Y
and fragments [BKW99]. We currently develop an authoring to ol and a presentation engine for Z X,
Y
since presentation-neutral representation of multimedia contentaswell as adaptation supp ort directly
impacts the design of authoring and presentation to ols.
References
[All83] J. F. Allen. Maintainin g Knowledge ab out Temp oral Intervals. Communications of the ACM,
26 11 :832{843, Novemb er 1983.
[BK99] S. Boll and W. Klas. Z X | A Semantic Mo del for Multimedia Do cuments and Presentations. In To
Y
be published in: Proceedings of the 8th IFIP Conference on Data Semantics DS-8 : \Semantic Issues
in Multimedia Systems". Kluwer Academic Publishers, Rotorua, New Zealand, 5-8 January 1999.
[BKW99] S. Boll, W. Klas, and U. Westermann. Exploiting OR-DBMS Technology to Implement the Z X
Y
Data Mo del for Multimedia Do cuments and Presentations. In A. Buchmann, editor, Submitted to:
Datenbanksysteme in Buro, Technik und Wissenschaft BTW . GI-Fachtagung, March 1999.
[BPSM98] T. Bray,J.Paoli, and C. M. Sp erb erg-McQueen. Extensible Markup Language XML 1.0 { W3C
Recommendation 10-February-1998. W3C, URL: http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-xml-19980210,
Februar 1998.
[Bul98] D. C. A. Bulterman. User-centered Abstractions for Adaptive Hyp ermedia Presentations. In Proc. of
the 6th ACM Multimedia Conference, Bristol, UK, Septemb er 1998.
[C-L98] C-LAB | Research Institute of the UniversityofPaderb orn and Siemens AG. IDIAS - An Intelligent
Diagram Assistant, 1998. URL http://www.c-lab.de/ ucmm/idias/ro ot.html .
[DD94] S. DeRose and D. G. Durand. Making Hypermedia Work: A User's Guide to HyTime. Kluwer
Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, 1994.
[DK95] A. Duda and C. Keramane. Structured temp oral comp osition of multimedia data. In Proc. IEEE
International Workshop on Multimedia- Database-Management Systems, Blue Mountain Lake, August
1995.
[EBS97] J. Eklund, P. Brusilovsky, and E. Schwarz. Adaptive textb o oks on the www. In H. Ashman, P. Thistew-
aite, R. Debreceny, and A. Ellis, editors, Proceedings of AUSWEB97, The ThirdAustralian Conference
on the World Wide Web, Queensland, Australia, pages 186|192. Southern Cross University Press,
July, 5{9 1997. 14
[EF91] M. J. Egenhofer and R. Franzosa. Point-Set Top ological Spatial Relations. Int. Journal of Geographic
Information Systems, 5 2 , March 1991.
+
[HBB 98] P. Hoschka, S. Buga j, D. Bulterman, et al. Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language { W3C
Working Draft 2-February-98. W3C, URL: http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/WD-smil-0202 , Februar
1998.
[HFK95] N. Hirzalla, B. Falchuk, and A. Karmouch. A Temp oral Mo del for Interactive Multimedia Scenarios.
IEEE Multimedia, 2 3 :24{31, Fall 1995.
[Hof96] P. Hofmann. MHEG-5 and MHEG-6: Multimedia Standards for Minimal Resource Systems. Technical
Rep ort, Technische Universitat Berlin, April 1996.
[ISO86] ISO. Information processing - Text and Oce Systems - Standard Generalized Markup Language
SGML , 1986. ISO-IS 8879.
[ISO92] ISO/IEC. Information Technology - Hypermedia/Time-based Structuring Language HyTime , 1992.
ISO/IEC IS 10744.
[ISO95] ISO/IEC JTC1/SC29/WG12. Information Technology { Coding of Multimedia and Hypermedia In-
formation { Part 5: Support for Base-Level Interactive Applications, ISO/IEC IS 13522-5. ISO/IEC,
1995.
[ISO96] ISO/IEC JTC1/SC29/WG12. Information Technology { Coding of Multimedia and Hypermedia In-
formation { Part 6: Support for Enhanced Interactive Applications, ISO/IEC IS 13522-6. ISO/IEC,
1996.
[JR95] R. Joseph and J. Rosengren. MHEG-5: An Overview. Technical Rep ort, GMD-FOKUS, Berlin,
URL://www.fokus.gmd.de/ovma/mug/archives/d o c/mh eg-reader/ rd120 6.html, Decemb er 1995.
[KBA93] T. Kamba, K. Bharat, and M. C. Alb ers. The Krakatoa Chronicle - An Interactive, Personalized
Newspap er on the Web. page http://www.w3.org/Conferences/WWW4/Pap ers/ 93/, 1993.
[KLAV98] W. Klippgen, T. D. C. Little, G. Ahanger, and D. Venkatesh. The Use of Metadata for the Rendering
of Personalized Video Delivery. In [SK98], New York, 1998. McGraw-Hill.
[LG93] T. D. C. Little and A. Ghafo or. Interval-Based Conceptual Mo dels for Time-Dep endent Multimedia
Data. IEEE Transactions on Know ledge and Data Engineering, 5 4 , August 1993.
[MBE95] T. Meyer-Boudnik and W. E elsb erg. MHEG Explained. IEEE Multimedia, 2 1 , Spring 1995.
[NKN91] S. R. Newcomb, N. A. Kipp, and V. T. Newcomb. "HyTime" { The Hyp ermedia/Time-Based Do cu-
ment Structuring Language. Communications of the ACM, 34 11 , Novemb er 1991.
[PS94] D. Papadias and T. Sellis. Qualitative Representation of Spatial Knowledge in Two-Dimensional Space.
VLDB Journal, 3 4 , Octob er 1994.
[PTSE95] D. Papadias, Y. Theo doridis, T. Sellis, and M. J. Egenhofer. Top ological Relations in the World
of Minimum Bounding Rectangles: A Study with R-Trees. In Proceedings of the ACM SIGMOD
Conference on Management of Data, San Jose, May 1995.
[RLJ98] D. Raggett, A. Le Hors, and I. Jacobs. HTML 4.0 Speci cation { W3C Recommendation, revisedon
24-April-1998. W3C, URL: http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-html40-19980424, April 1998.
[RvOB97] L. Rutledge, J. van Ossenbruggen, and D. C. A. Bulterman. A Framework for Generating Adaptable
Hyp ermedia Do cuments. In Proc. ACM Multimedia Conference, Seattle, Novemb er 1997.
[SK98] A. Sheth and W. Klas. Multimedia Data Management - Using Metadata to Integrate and Apply Digital
Media. McGraw-Hill, New York, 1998.
[SSW98] V. Schoch, M. Sp echt, and G. Web er. ADI | An Empirical Evaluation of a Tutorial Agent.
In T. Ottmann and I. Tomek, editors, Proceedings of the ED-Media and ED-TELECOM 1998,
Freiburg, Germany. Asso ciation for the Advancement of Computing in Education, June 1998. URL
http://apsymac33.uni-tri er.de:8080/AD I.html.
[SYS98] D. Schmitz, J. Yu, and P. Satangeli. Timed Interactive Multimedia Extensions for HTML
HTML+TIME . W3C, URL: http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/NOTE-HTMLplusTIME-19980918,
Septemb er 1998.
[WR94] T. Wahl and K. Rothermel. Representing Time in Multimedia Systems. In Proc. IEEE International
Conference on Multimedia Computing and Systems, pages 538{543, Boston, MA, May 1994. 15