Network Working Group
`Request for Comments: 1614
`RARE Technical Report:
`8
`Category: Informational
`
`C. Adie
`Edinburgh University Computing Service
`May 1994
`
`Network Access to Multimedia Information
`
`Status of this Memo
`
`This memo provides information for the Internet community. This memo
`does not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution of
`this memo is unlimited.
`
`Abstract
`
`This report summarises the requirements of research and academic
`network users for network access to multimedia information.
`It does
`this by investigating some of the projects planned or currently
`underway in the community. Existing information systems such as
`Gopher, WAIS and World-Wide Web are examined from the point of view
`of multimedia support, and some interesting hypermedia systems
`emerging from the research community are also studied. Relevant
`existing and developing standards in this area are discussed.
`The
`report identifies the gaps between the capabilities of
`currentlydeployed systems and the user requirements, and proposes
`further work centred on the World—wide Web system to rectify this.
`
`The report is in some places very detailed, so it is preceded by an
`extended summary, which outlines the findings of the report.
`
`Publication History
`
`The first edition was released on 29 June 1993. This second edition
`
`contains minor changes, corrections and updates.
`
`Table of Contents
`
`Ackn0wledgements
`Disclaimer
`
`Availability
`0. Extended Summary
`1. Introduction
`
`1.1. Background
`1.2. Terminology
`2. User Requirements
`2.1. Applications
`2.2. Data Characteristics
`
`2
`2
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`3
`3
`10
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`10
`11
`13
`13
`18
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`Adie
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`[Page 1]
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`EMCNMware v. PersonalWeb
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`IPR2013—00083
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`EMCVMW 1070
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`

`

`RFC 1614
`
`Network Access to Multimedia Information
`
`May 1994
`
`2.3. Requirements Definition
`3. Existing Systems
`3.1. Gopher
`3.2. Wide Area Information Server
`3.3. World—wide Web
`3.4. Evaluating Existing Tools
`4. Research
`
`4.1 Hyper—G
`4.2. microcosm
`4.3. AthenaMuse 2
`
`CEC Research Programmes
`4.4
`4.5. Other
`5. Standards
`
`5.1. Structuring Standards
`5.2. Access Mechanisms
`5.3. Other Standards
`5.4. Trade Associations
`6. Future Directions
`6.1. General Comments on the State—of—the—Art
`
`6.2. Quality of Service
`6.3. Recommended Further Work
`7. References
`
`8. Security Considerations
`9. Author's Address
`
`Acknowledgements
`
`19
`24
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`30
`34
`42
`47
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`47
`48
`50
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`55
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`76
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`79
`79
`
`The following people have (knowingly or unknOwingly) helped in the
`preparation of this report: Tim Berners—Lee, John Dyer, Aydin Edguer,
`Anton Eliens, Tony Gibbons, Stewart Granger, Wendy Hall, Gary Hill,
`Brian Marquardt, Gunnar Moan, Michael Neuman, Ari Ollikainen, David
`Pullinger, John Smith, Edward Vielmetti, and Jane Williams.
`The
`useful role which NCSA's XMosaic information browser tool played in
`assembling the information on which this report was based should also
`be acknowledged - many thanks to its developers.
`
`trademarks are hereby acknOwledged as being the property of their
`All
`respect ive owners .
`
`Disclaimer
`
`This report is based on information supplied to or obtained by
`Edinburgh University Computing Service (EUCS)
`in good faith. Neither
`EUCS nor RARE nor any of their staff may be held liable for any
`inaccuracies or omissions, or any loss or damage arising from or out
`of the use of this report.
`
`Adie
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`[Page 2]
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`

`

`RFC 1614
`
`Network Access to Multimedia Information
`
`May 1994
`
`The opinions expressed in this report are personal opinions of the
`author.
`They do not necessarily represent the policy either of RARE
`or Of ECUS.
`
`in this report does not constitute endorsement
`Mention of a product
`either by EUCS or by RARE.
`
`Availability
`
`text,
`(PostScript,
`This document is available in various forms
`Microsoft Word for Windows 2) by anonymous FTP through the following
`URL:
`
`ftp://ftp.edinburgh.ac.uk/pub/mmaccess/
`
`ftp://ftp.rare.nl/rare/pub/rtr/rtrS—rfc.../
`
`Paper copies are available from the RARE Secretariat.
`
`0. Extended Summary
`
`Introduction
`
`This report is concerned with issues in the intersection of
`networked information retrieval, database and multimedia
`technologies.
`It aims to establish research and academic user
`requirements for network access to multimedia data,
`to look at
`existing systems which offer partial solutions, and to identify
`what needs to be done to satisfy the most pressing requirements.
`
`User Requirements
`
`There are a number of reasons why multimedia data may need to be
`accessed remotely (as opposed to physically distributing the data,
`e.g., on CD-ROM). These reasons centre on the cost of physical
`distribution, versus the timeliness of network distribution. Of
`course,
`there is a cost associated with network distribution, but
`this tends to be hidden from the end user.
`
`User requirements have been determined by studying existing and
`proposed projects involving networked multimedia data.
`It has
`proved convenient to divide the applications into four classes
`according to their requirements: multimedia database applications,
`academic (particularly scientific) publishing applications, cal
`(computeraided learning), and general multimedia information
`services.
`
`Adie
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`[Page 3]
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`

`

`RFC 1614
`
`Network Access to Multimedia Information
`
`May 1994
`
`Database applications typically involve large collections of
`monomedia (non-text) data with associated textual and numeric
`fields. They require a range of search and retrieval techniques.
`
`Publishing applications require a range of media types,
`hyperlinking, and the capability to access the same data using
`different access paradigms (search, browse, hierarchical,
`links).
`Authentication and charging facilities are required.
`
`Cal applications require sophisticated presentation and
`synchronisation capabilities, of the type found in existing
`multimedia authoring tools. Authentication and monitoring
`facilities are required.
`
`General multimedia information services include on-line
`
`documentation, campus—wide information systems, and other systems
`which don't conveniently fall into the preceding categories.
`Hyperlinking is perhaps the most common requirement
`in this area.
`
`The analysis of these application areas allows a number of
`important user requirements to be identified:
`
`0
`
`0
`
`0
`
`0
`
`0
`
`0
`
`0
`
`0
`
`0
`
`Support for the Apple Macintosh, UNIX and PC/MS Windows
`environments.
`
`image,
`Support for a wide range of media types - text,
`graphics and application-specific media being most
`important,
`followed by video and sound.
`
`Support for hyperlinking, and for multiple access structures
`to be built on the same underlying data.
`
`Support for sophisticated Synchronisation and presentation
`facilities.
`
`Support for a range of database searching techniques.
`
`Support for user annotation of information, and for user-
`controlled display of sequenced media.
`
`Adequate responsiveness — the maximum time taken to retrieve
`a node should not exceed 205.
`
`Support for user authentication, a charging mechanism, and
`monitoring facilities.
`
`The ability to execute scripts.
`
`Adie
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`[Page 4]
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`

`

`RFC 1614
`
`Network Access to Multimedia Information
`
`May 1994
`
`0
`
`0
`
`Support for mail-based access to multimedia documents, and
`(where appropriate} for printing multimedia documents.
`
`Powerful, easy-to-use authoring tools.
`
`Existing Systems
`
`The main information retrieval systems in use on the Internet are
`Gopher, Wais, and the World—Wide Web. All work on a client—server
`paradigm, and all provide some degree of support for multimedia data.
`
`Gopher presents the user with a hierarchical arrangement of nodes
`which are either directories (menus),
`leaf nodes (documents
`containing text or other media types}. or search nodes (allowing some
`set of documents to be searched using keywords, possibly using WAIS).
`A range of media types is supported. Extensions currently being
`developed for Gopher
`(Gopher+) provide better support for multimedia
`data. Gopher has a very high penetration (there are over 1000 Gopher
`servers on the Internet), but it does not provide hyperlinks and is
`inflexibly hierarchical.
`
`(Wide Area Information Server) allows users to search for
`Wais
`documents in remote databases. Full-text indexing of the databases
`allows all documents containing particular (combinations of) words to
`be identified and retrieved. Non—text data (principally image data)
`can be handled, but
`indexing such documents is only performed on the
`document file name, severely limiting its usefulness. However, WAIS
`is ideally suited to text search applications.
`
`is a large-scale distributed hypermedia system.
`World-Wide Web (WWW)
`The Web consists of nodes (also called documents) and links. Links
`are connections between documents:
`to follow a link,
`the user clicks
`on a highlighted word in the source doCument, which causes the
`linkedto dOCument to be retrieved and displayed.
`A dOCument can be
`one of a variety of media types, or it can be a search node in a
`similar sense to Gopher.
`The WWW addressing method means that WAIS
`and Gopher servers may also be accessed from (indeed,
`form part of)
`the Web.
`WWW has a smaller penetration than Gopher, but is growing
`faster.
`The Web technology is currently being revised to take better
`account of the needs of multimedia information.
`
`These systems all go some way to meet the user requirements.
`
`0
`
`0
`
`Support for multiple platforms and for a wide range of media
`types (through "viewer" software external to the client
`program)
`is good.
`
`Only WWW has hyperlinks.
`
`Adie
`
`[Page 5]
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`

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`RFC 1614
`
`Network Access to Multimedia Information
`
`May 1994
`
`0
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`0
`
`0
`
`0
`
`0
`
`0
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`0
`
`o
`
`There is little or no support for sophisticated presentation
`and synchronisation requirements.
`
`Support for database querying tends to be limited to
`"keyword" searches, but current developments in Gopher and
`WWW should make more sophisticated queries possible.
`
`Some clients support user annotation of documents.
`
`Response times for all three systems vary substantially
`depending on the network distance between client and server,
`and there is no support for isochronous data transfer.
`
`There is little in the way of authentication, charging and
`monitoring facilities, although these are planned for WWW.
`
`Scripting is not supported because of security issues
`
`WWW supports a mail responder.
`
`The only system sufficiently complex to warrant an authoring
`tool is WWW, which has editors to support its hypertext
`markup language.
`
`Research
`
`There are a number of research projects which are of significant
`interest.
`
`Hyper-G is an ambitious distributed hypermedia research project at
`the University of Graz.
`It combines concepts of hypermedia,
`information retrieval systems and dOCumentation systems with aspects
`of communication and collaboration, and computer—supported teaching
`and learning. Automatic generation of hyperlinks is supported, and
`there is a concept of generic structures which can exist in parallel
`with the hyperlink structure.
`Hyper—G is based on UNIX, and is in
`use as a CWIS at Graz. Gateways between Hyper-G and WWW exist.
`
`Microcosm is a PC-based hypermedia system developed at the University
`of Southampton.
`It can be viewed as an integrating hypermedia
`framework - a layer on top of a range of existing applications which
`enables relationships between different documents to be established.
`Hyperlinks are maintained separately from the data. Networking
`support for microcosm is currently under development, as are versions
`of Microcosm for the Apple Macintosh and for UNIX. Microcosm is
`currently being "commercialised".
`
`Adie
`
`[Page 6]
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`

`

`RFC 1614
`
`Network Access to Multimedia Information
`
`May 1994
`
`AthenaMuse 2 is an ambitious distributed hypermedia authoring and
`presentation system under development by a university/industry
`consortium based at MIT.
`It will have good facilities for
`presentation and synchronisation of multimedia data, strong authoring
`support, and will include support for networking isochronous data. It
`will be a commercial product.
`Initial versions will support UNIX and
`X windows, with a PC/MS Windows version following. Apple Macintosh
`support has lower priority.
`
`The “Xanadu" project is designing and building an "open, social
`hypermedia" distributed environment, but shows no sign of delivering
`anything after several years of work.
`
`The European Commission sponsors a number of peripherally relevant
`projects through its Esprit and RACE research programmes. These
`programmes tend to be oriented towards commercial markets, and are
`thus not directly relevant.
`An exception is the Esprit
`IDOMENEUS
`project, which brings together workers in the database,
`information
`retrieval and multimedia fields.
`It is recommended that RARE
`establish a liaison with this project.
`
`There are a variety of other academic and commercial research
`projects which are also of interest. None of them are as directly
`relevant as those outlined above.
`
`Standards
`
`There are a number of existing and emerging standards for structuring
`hypermedia applications.
`of these,
`the most
`important are SGML,
`HyTime, MHEG, ODA, PREMO and Acrobat. All bar the last are de jure
`standards, while Acrobat is a commercial product which is being
`proposed as a de facto standard.
`
`is a markup language for
`SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language)
`delimiting the logical and semantic content of text documents.
`Because of its flexibility, it has become an important tool
`in
`hypermedia systems. HyTime is an ISO standardised infrastructure for
`representing integrated, open hypermedia documents, and is based on
`SGML. HyTime has great expressive power, but is not optimised for
`run-time efficiency.
`It is recommended that future RARE work on
`networked hypermedia should take account of the importance of SGML
`and HyTime.
`
`MHEG (Multimedia and Hypermedia information coding Experts Group)
`a draft ISO standard for representing hypermedia applications in a
`platform-independent form.
`It uses an object-oriented approach, and
`is optimised for run—time efficiency. Full
`IS status for MHEG is
`expected in 1994.
`It is recommended that RARE keep a watching brief
`
`is
`
`Adie
`
`[Page 7]
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`

`

`RFC 1614
`
`Network Access to Multimedia Information
`
`May 1994
`
`on MHEG.
`
`The ODA (Open Document Architecture) standard is being enhanced to
`incorporate multimedia and hypermedia features. However,
`interest in
`ODA is perceived to be decreasing, and it is recommended that ODA
`should not form a basis for further RARE work in networked
`
`hypermedia.
`
`PREMO is a new work item in the ISO graphics standardisation
`community, which appears to overlap with MHEG and HyTime.
`It is not
`clear that the PREMO work, which is at a very early stage,
`is
`worthwhile in view of the existence of those standards.
`
`Acrobat PDF is a format for representing multimedia (printable)
`documents in a portable, revisable form.
`It is based on Postscript,
`and is being proposed by Adobe Inc (originators of Postscript) as an
`industry standard.
`RARE should maintain awareness of this technology
`in view of its potential impact on multimedia information systems.
`
`There are various standards which have relevance to the way
`multimedia data is accessed across the network. Many of these have
`been described in a previous report
`[1].
`Two further access
`protocols are the proposed multimedia extensions to SQL, and the
`Document Filing and Retrieval protocol. Neither of these are likely
`to have major significance for networked multimedia information
`systems.
`
`Other standards of importance include:
`
`o
`
`0
`
`MIME, a multimedia email standard which defines a range of
`media types and encoding methods for those types which are
`useful in a wider context.
`
`(Audio—visual Interactive services} and the associated
`AVIs
`multimedia scripting language SMSL, which form a
`standardisation initiative within CCITT {now ITU-TSS)
`specify interactive multimedia services which can be
`provided across telephone/ISBN networks.
`
`to
`
`There are two important trade associations which are involved in
`standardisation work.
`The Interactive Multimedia Association (IMA)
`has a Compatibility Project which is developing a specification for
`platform-independent interactive multimedia systems,
`including
`networking aspects.
`A newly—formed group,
`the Multimedia
`Communications Forum (MMCF), plans to provide input to the standards
`bodies.
`It is recommended that RARE become an Observing Member of
`the MMCF.
`A third trade association —
`the Multimedia Communications
`
`Community of Interest - has also just been formed.
`
`Adie
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`[Page 8]
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`

`

`RFC 1614
`
`Network Access to Multimedia Information
`
`May 1994
`
`Future Directions
`
`Three common design approaches emerge from the variety of systems and
`standards analysed in this report.
`They can be described in terms of
`distinctions between different aspects of the system:
`
`0
`
`0
`
`0
`
`content is distinct from hyperstructure
`
`media type is distinct from media encoding
`
`data is distinct from protocol
`
`Distributed hypermedia systems are emerging from the
`research/development phase into the experimental deployment phase.
`However,
`the existing global
`information systems (Gopher, WAIS and
`WWW) are still largely limited to the use of external viewers for
`nontextual data.
`The most significant mismatches between the
`capabilities of currently-deployed systems and user requirements are
`in the areas of presentation and quality of service (i.e.,
`responsiveness).
`
`ImprOving QOS is significantly more difficult than improving
`presentation capabilities, but there are a number of possible ways in
`which this could be addressed.
`Improving feedback to the user,
`the
`greater multi—threading of applications, pre—fetching, caching,
`use of alternative "views" of a node, and the use of isochronous data
`streams are all avenues which are worth exploring.
`
`In order to address these problems, it is recommended that RARE seek
`to adapt and enhance existing tools, rather than develop new ones.
`
`In particular, it is recommended that RARE select the World-Wide Web
`to concentrate its efforts on.
`The reasons for this choice revolve
`around the flexibility of the WWW design,
`the availability of
`hyperlinks,
`the existing effort which is already going into
`multimedia support in WWW,
`the fact that it is an integrating
`solution incorporating both WAIS and Gopher support, and its high
`rate of growth compared to Gopher (despite Gopher's wider
`deployment). Gopher is the main competitor to WWW, but its
`inflexibly hierarchical structure and the absence of hyperlinks make
`it difficult to use for highly—interactive multimedia applications.
`
`It is recommended that RARE should invite proposals for and
`subsequently commission work to:
`
`0
`
`Develop conversion tools from commercial multimedia
`authoring packages to WWW, and accompanying authoring
`guidelines.
`
`Adie
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`[Page 9]
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`

`

`RFC 1614
`
`Network Access to Multimedia Information
`
`May 1994
`
`0
`
`0
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`0
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`0
`
`Implement and evaluate the most promising ways of overcoming
`the Q08 problem.
`
`to
`Implement a specific user project using these tools,
`validate that the facilities being developed are truly
`relevant to real applications.
`
`Use the experience gained to inform and influence the
`development of the WWW technology.
`
`Contribute to the development of PC/MS Windows and Apple
`Macintosh WWW clients, particularly in the multimedia data
`handling area.
`
`It is noted that the rapid growth of WWW may in the future lead to
`problems through the implementation of multiple, uncoordinated and
`mutually incompatible add-on features.
`To guard against this trend,
`it may be appropriate for RARE,
`in coordination with CERN and other
`interested parties such as NCSA,
`to:
`
`0
`
`Encourage the formation of a consortium to coordinate WWW
`technical development.
`
`1. Introduction
`
`1.1. Background
`
`This study was inspired by the realisation that while some aspects of
`distributed multimedia technology are being actively introduced into
`the European research community (for instance, audiovisual
`conferencing,
`through the MICE project), other aspects are receiving
`less attention.
`In particular, one category in which there seems to
`be relatively little activity is providing solutions to ease remote
`access to multimedia resources (for instance, accessing stored
`audio/video clips or images, or indeed entire multimedia
`applications, across the network}.
`Few commercial products address
`this, and the relevance of existing standards in this area is
`unclear.
`
`0f the 50 or so research projects documented in the recent RARE
`distributed multimedia survey [1}, only about six have a direct
`the
`relevance to this application area. Where stated in the survey,
`main research effort in these projects is often directed towards the
`"difficult?I problems, such as the transfer of isochronous data and
`the design and implementation of object—oriented multimedia
`databases, rather than towards user-oriented issues.
`
`Adie
`
`[Page 10]
`
`

`

`RFC 1614
`
`Network Access to Multimedia Information
`
`May 1994
`
`This report is concerned with practical issues in the intersection of
`networked information retrieval, database and multimedia
`technologies.
`It aims to establish actual user requirements in this
`area,
`to look at existing systems which offer partial solutions, and
`to identify what additional work needs to be done to satisfy the most
`pressing requirements.
`
`1.2. Terminology
`
`In order to discuss multimedia information systems, we need a
`consistent terminology.
`The vocabulary defined below embodies some
`of the concepts of the Dexter hypertext reference model
`[2]. This
`model is sufficiently general to be useful for describing most of the
`facilities and requirements of the multimedia information systems
`described in this report.
`(However,
`the Dexter model does not
`describe searchable index objects — it is not a database reference
`model.)
`
`anchor
`
`in a text
`An identified portion of a node. E.g.,
`node, an anchor might be a string of one or more
`adjacent characters, while in an image node it
`might be a rectangular area of the image.
`
`composite node
`
`A node containing data of multiple media types.
`
`document
`
`Often used loosely as a synonym for node.
`
`hyperdocument
`
`We refer to a collection of related nodes,
`linked internally with hyperlinks, as a
`"hyperdocument".
`Examples are a database of
`medical
`images and associated text; a module
`from a suite of teaching material; or an article
`in a scientific journal.
`A hyperdocument may
`contain hyperlinks to other data which exists in
`internally with hyperlinks, as a
`"hyperdocument". Examples are a other
`hyperdocuments, but can be viewed as largely
`self-contained.
`It is a highlevel "unit of
`authoring", but is not necessarily perceived as
`a distinct unit by a reader (although it may be
`so perceived, particularly if it contains few
`hyperlinks to outside entities).
`
`hyperlink
`
`Set of one or more source anchors and one or
`more target anchors. Also known simply as a
`"link".
`
`Adie
`
`[Page 11]
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`

`

`RFC
`
`1614
`
`Network Access to Multimedia Information
`
`May 1994
`
`isochronous (adjective) Describes a continuous flow of data which
`is required to be delivered by the network under
`critical time constraints.
`
`leaf node
`
`A node which contains no source anchors.
`
`media type
`
`An attribute of data which describes the general
`nature of its expected presentation.
`The value
`of this attribute could be one of the following
`(not exhaustive) list:
`
`0 Text
`
`0 SOund
`
`0 Image (e.g., a "photograph")
`
`0 Graphics (e.g., a "drawing")
`
`0 Animation (i.e., moving graphics)
`
`0 Movie (i.e., moving image)
`
`monomedia (adjective)
`type.
`
`Said of data which is all of the same media
`
`Said of data which contains different media
`multimedia (adjective)
`types. This definition is stricter than general
`usage, where "multimedia" is often used as a
`generic term for non-textual data, and where it
`may even be used as a noun.
`
`physical media
`
`Magnetic or optical storage. Not to be confused
`with media typel
`
`[simple] node
`
`A monomedia object which may be retrieved and
`displayed as a single unit.
`
`source anchor
`
`An anchor which may be "actioned" by the user,
`causing the nodeis) containing the target
`anchor(s)
`in the same hyperlink to be retrieved
`and displayed. This process is called
`"traversing the link".
`
`target anchor
`
`an anchor forming part of a hyperlink, whose
`containing node is retrieved and displayed when
`the hyperlink is traversed.
`
`Adie
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`[Page 12]
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`

`

`RFC 1614
`
`Network Access to Multimedia Information
`
`May 1994
`
`2. User Requirements
`
`User requirements in an area such as networking, which is subject to
`rapid technological change, are sometimes difficult to identify.
`To
`an extent,
`technology leads applications, and users will exploit what
`is possible.
`
`2.1. Applications
`
`Awareness of the range of networked multimedia applications which are
`currently being envisaged by computer users in the academic and
`research community leads to a better understanding of the technical
`requirements. This section outlines some projects which require
`remote access to multimedia information across research networks, and
`which are currently either at a preliminary stage or underway.
`The
`projects are divided into broad categories according to their
`characteristics.
`
`Multimedia Databases
`
`Here are several examples of multimedia projects which have a
`“database" character.
`
`The Peirce Telecommunity Project
`
`This project centres on the construction of a multimedia (text and
`image) database of the works of the American philosopher Peirce,
`together with tools to process the data and to make it available
`over the Internet.
`A sub—project at Brown University focuses on
`adapting existing client/server network tools for this purpose.
`The requirements for network access include facilities for
`structured viewing,
`intelligent retrieval, navigation,
`linking,
`and annotation, as well as for domainspecific processing.
`
`Museum Object Databases
`
`The RAMA (Remote Access to Museum Archives) project is funded
`under the EEC RACE II programme.
`Its objective is to develop a
`system which allows museums to make multimedia information about
`their exhibits and archived material available over an ISDN
`
`The requirements capture and technical architecture
`network.
`design phases are now complete, and a prototype system will be
`delivered in June 1993 to link the Ashmolean Museum (Oxford, GB),
`the Musee d'Orsay (Paris, PR) and the Museum Archeological
`National
`(Madrid, ES).
`Image data is the main media type of
`interest, although video and sound may also play a part.
`
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`

`RFC 1614
`
`Network Access to Multimedia Information
`
`May 1994
`
`The Bristol Biomedical Videodisk Project
`
`The Bristol Biomedical videodisc is a collection of Medical.
`Veterinary and Dental
`images.
`The collection holds some 24,000
`still images and is continuously growing. Textual
`information
`regarding the images is included as part of the database and this
`can be searched on any keyword, number or other data type, or a
`combination of any of these.
`The images are currently delivered
`in analogue form on a videodisc, but many institutions are unable
`to afford the cost of videodisc players.
`Investigations into
`making this image and text database available across the network
`are underway.
`
`ArchiGopher
`
`ArchiGopher is a Gopher server at the College of Architecture,
`University of Michigan, dedicated to the dissemination of
`architectural knowledge. Presently in its infancy, ArchiGopher is
`intended to become a multimedia resource for all architecture
`faculty and students world—wide.
`Some of the available or planned
`resources are:
`
`0 The College’s image bank.
`
`0 The CAD group’s collection of computer models
`started).
`
`(already
`
`0 The Doctoral Program's recent dissertation proposals and
`abstracts.
`
`0 Example archive of Kandinsky paintings.
`
`0 Images of 3D CAD projects.
`
`The principal media type in ArchiGopher is image. Files are
`stored in both TIFF and GIF format.
`
`Vatican Library Exhibit
`
`the US Library of Congress mounted an electronic
`In January 1993,
`version Of
`the Exhibition ROME REBORN:
`THE VATICAN LIBRARY AND
`RENAISSANCE CULTURE.
`The exhibition was subsequently processed by
`the University of Virginia Library. The text files were broken
`into individual captions associated directly with each image and a
`WAIS—searchable version of the object index generated. This has
`been made available on Gopher by the University of Virginia
`Library.
`
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`RFC 1614
`
`Network Access to Multimedia Information
`
`May 1994
`
`This project is particularly interesting, as it demonstrates some
`limitations of the Gopher system.
`The principal media types are
`image and text, and it is difficult to associate a caption with
`its image - each must be fetched separately, and using the XMosaic
`or xgopher client software it is not possible to tell which menu
`entry is the image and which the caption.
`(This may be a
`consequence of how the data has been configured for the Gopher
`server; if so, a requirement for better publishing tools may be
`indicated.)
`Furthermore, searching the object index will result
`in a Gopher menu containing references to catalogue entries for
`relevant exhibits, but not to the online images of the exhibits
`themselves, which severely limits the usefulness of the index.
`
`It is interesting to note that during the preparation of this
`report,
`the Vatican Exhibition has been mounted on the WorldWide
`Web
`(WWW).
`The hypermedia presentation on the Web is very much
`more attractive to use than the Gopher version.
`
`Jukebox
`
`The
`Jukebox is a project supported by the EEC libraries program.
`project aims to evaluate a pilot service previding library users
`with on-line access to a database of digital sound recordings.
`The database will support multi—user access and use suitable
`storage media to make available sound recordings in a compressed
`format. Users will access the service with a personal computer
`connected to a telematic network.
`
`Scientific Publishing
`
`There are several refereed electronic academic journals presently
`distributed on the Internet. These tend to be text-only journals,
`and have not really addressed the issues of delivering and
`manipulating non—text data.
`
`Many scientific publishers have plans for electronic publishing of
`existing academic journals and conference proceedings, either on
`physical media or on the network.
`The Journal of Biological
`Chemistry is nOw published on CD—ROM,
`for instance.
`Some publishers
`view CD-ROM as an interim step to the ultimate goal of making
`journals available on—line on the Internet.
`
`The main types of non-text data which are envisaged are:
`
`0
`
`image data (a microphotograph, say)
`In many cases,
`Images.
`is central to an article.
`Software which recognises that
`the text may be of secondary importance to the image is
`required.
`
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`RFC 1614
`
`Network Access to Multimedia Information
`
`May 1994
`
`o
`
`0
`
`0
`
`0
`
`The ChemLab and MoleculeLab
`Application-specific data.
`applications are widely used, and the integration of
`corresponding data types with journal articles will enhance
`readers’ ability to visualise molecular structures.
`Similarly, mathematics appearing in scientific papers could
`be represented in a form suitable for processing by
`applications such as Mathematica. Mathematical content
`could then become a much more interactive and dynamic aspect
`of research publications.
`
`The ability for a reader to extract tabular
`Tabular data.
`data from a research paper,
`to produce a graphical
`representation,
`to subset the data, and to further process
`it in a number of different ways,
`is viewed as an essential
`part of scientific electronic publishing.
`
`The American Astronomical Society regularly
`Movies.
`publishes videos to go with its academic journals.
`Electronic publishing can improve on this "hard copy"
`publishing by integrating video data much more closely with
`the source article.
`
`Sound. There is perhaps slightly less demand for audio
`information in scientific publishing, but the requirement
`does exist in particular specialities (such as acoustics and
`zoology journals).
`
`Access to academic journals using at least four different paradigms
`is envisaged. Hierarchical access, perhaps using a traditional
`journal/volume/issue/article model,
`is perhaps the most obvious.
`Keyword searching (or full-text indexing) will be required. Browsing
`is another useful and often underestimated access model
`—
`to support
`browsing it is essential that "eye—catching" data (unlikely to be
`textual) is prominently accessible. The final method of access is
`perhaps the most
`important
`- the use of interactive viewing tools.
`Such tools would enable navigation of hypermedia links within and
`between articles, with gateways to special-purpose applications as
`described above.
`The use of these disparate access methods implies
`more than one structure being applied to the same underlying data.
`
`Standards, particularly SGML, are becoming important to publishers,
`and it is clear that the SGML-based HyTime standard will be a front
`runner in providing the kind of hypermedia facilities which are bein