MULTIMEDIA BASED DATA BASE PRESENTATION TOOL & M . K. Mohandas - - PDF document

SLIDE 1

The M PAT is m ade up of six m odules. Slide Editor. Slide Integrator. Audio Studio. Video Studio. Presentation Player. Installation M odule.

MULTIMEDIA BASED DATA BASE PRESENTATION TOOL

M . K. Mohandas

&

• K. C . Shet

ABSTRACT

M ultim edia technology prom ises an exciting tool, to the library by providing an environm ental friendly system supporting different m edia, like audio,graphics, and text including anim ation

• n the sam e

platform for efficient inform ation handling. The m ultim edia w orkstation, can be m ade to present various databases, to the view er alegantly by incorporating a m ultim edia presentation authoring tool. This authoring tool can have various m odules such as slide editor, slide integrator, audio studio,video studio, presentation player and installation m odules. This paper attem pts to describe the various m odules needed to have in a presentation authoring tool. Presently all these m odules are under developm ent in the D epartm ent

• f

C om puter Engineering, K.R .E.C , Surathkal

• n M icrosoft

W indow s 95 and M icrosoft Pow er Point environm ent.

• 1. INTRODUCTION

M ultim edia is a technology that attem pts a harm onious realtim e integration

• f different

m edia like im ages, full m otion, video, voice, text, graphics and other com puter data for enhanced m an-m achine interaction encom passing the audio-visual senses. M ultim edia technology prom ises to radically alter our library by providing an environm ent friendly system supporting different m edia like video, audio, graphics and text all

• n

the sam e platform for efficient inform ation handling. Today a w ide variety

• f

resources ranging from business directories to encyclopedia are available in various form at either bibliographical

• r statistical
• r

sim ply infotainm ent form .They include databases

• n

m athem atical

• perations, advanced w ord processing,

legal search system s, corporate annual reports, business analysis, design tools for com plex design process, sim ulation, forecasting m odels, cash flow m odels, m arket research inform ation, foreign m arketing aids, I R system s for books, technical reports, new s about gam es, stock m arket data and m any m ore. Today a ;arge num ber

• f databases

provide inform ation

• n given

products and m arkets. These have been developed by analysts w ho system atically shift through a w ide range

• f

periodlcals, reports and books in different languages. Though databases cover alm ost all subjects, how ever som e subject areas are relatively w ell covered by databases

• f this

type epecially raw m aterials, chem icals and hitech products. C onsum er goods how ever such as toys, garm ents, furniture and handicrafts are often not treated to the sam e extent. Further m any

• f the databases

are biased, tend to focus

• n

N orth Am erican and W est European m arkets, although rnany databases providers are m aking efforts to diversity their geographical coverage. This paper gives a brief introduction

• f a M ultim edia

Presentation Authoring Tool (M PAT) w hich w ill allow a developer to m ake state

• f

art m ultim edia presentations. This authoring tool can help the user in m any w ays. A person sitting in one term inal can run the tool from rem ote side and prepare presentations using it. This is an im portant advantage because m ultim edia files (sound, video and anim ation)

• ccupy so m uch m em ory that it is difficult

and im practical to take them in floppies. The user w ould either have to take it in a high capacity catridge

• r copy the presentation
• n video tape and take w ith

him \her.

• 2. SLIDE EDITOR:

This m odule is responsible for creating the slides needed for presentation. This form s the first phase

SLIDE 2

• fdevelopm ent

in the M PAT. The Slide Editor w ill allow for tw o types

• f slides

to be created. a. N on-anim ated slides

• b. Anim ated

slides

• a. N on-anim ated slides:

Inthis case, each slide w ill consist of a series of text

• rsaved im ages. The m axim um

m ovem ent allow ed in this C ase is the m ovem ent

• f text

across the

• screen. There

are various m ethods allow ed for the m ovem ent of text-special effects like fail from left, fallfrom right, etc., used for fading-in and fading-out

• ftext. In this case, each fram e

constitutes

• ne slide.
• b. A nim ated slides:

Thisfeature allow s for anim ation-w here each object canbe associated w ith m ovem ent along a given path. The inputs w ill be the starting position

• f the im age,

theending position and the num ber of fram es in w hich to achieve the anim ation. In this case, several fram es constitute one slide. 3.SLID E IN TEG R ATO R This m odule w ill be instrum ental in integrating all the slides together. O nce all the slides 'are m ade individually using the slide editor (or from a predefined library) , they have to be linked together into a single

• presentation. To do this, it has been decided

that all the slides w ill be stored in a standard form at, w hich standardises the procedure for loading a slide. To interate them thus, w e w ill need another file form at 10 hold the integrated presentation. The authoring

• f

the slides w ill be done in a visual m anner, w here a flow chart based path w ill describe the m otion

• f
• presentation. Each slide w ill be node in the flow -chart,

and successive slides w ill be connected w ith a flow path betw een them . D rag and drop functionality w ill allow a developer to change the sequence

• f slides

w ithin the presentation. Another im portant feature that w ill be present in the softw are, w ill be the ability to describe a single background sound file, w hich w ill run throughout the presentation, im m aterial

• f

w hich slide is being

• played. This file w ill usually

be a .M ID file, since long W AV files are too big in size to be practically used as background audio. To describe how a slide phases in and

• ut
• f the

presentation, one of m any

• ptions

m ay be chosen. A subset of the options allow ed by M icrosoft Pow erpoint w ill be used, since the com pany em ployees are fam iliar w ith that softw are. For exam ple, Blocks, fade out, fade in, spiraling etc., The developer m ay also choose w hether the next slide w ill appear on user interrupt

• nly (like a m ouse click)
• r after a specified

am ount oftim e. Paths to the earlier slide w ill also be provided, and since the first version

• f the package

w ill allow

• nly a linear flow , this w ill

be the only interactivity allow ed. An extension to the softw are m ay be to allow the user to go to an arbitrary slide (identified by either nam e or num ber of the slide) w hile keeping the linear flow

• f the presentation.

W hile m aking the presentation, a developer w ill w ant to preview the presentation. A special preview

• ption

w ill provide this functionality, and thus help in fine tuning

• f presentations.
• 4. AU D IO

STU D IO This m odule can be run independently

• r can

be called from w ithin the slide Editor. It is im plem ented as an object. It supports 3 types

• f sound.
• a. D igital Audio

(.W AV) files. The Audio Studio provides for m anipulating

• the. W AV
• files. Each .W AV

file w ill be an object. The object w ill have the follow ing functions built into it, to play the file. to give a graphical display

• f the file

to cut a specified part of the file and copy it to the clipboard to paste m ix one .w av file w ith another. This facility w ill allow the user to m ix tw o .w av files. to change the sam pling rate and the num ber

• f bitss used in sam pling
• f the file.

To creat a sound file by recording sound from m ike. O ther features like rap, insert silence, etc., can be provided later as extension

• f the softw are.

b. M ID I (M usical Instrum ent D igital Interface). The audio Studio provides the facility to playa .M ID file. It also allow s create a .M ID file by recording from a m usical instrum ent. c. C D player. The Audio Studio has a built-in C D player. This C D player gives the follow ing facilities,

SLIDE 3

To select a track To play the C D from the selected track

• nw ards.

to pause a C D to eject the C D tray to stop a C D to rew ind trackw ise to frow ard trackw ise

• 5. VIDEO STUDIO

Like Audio Studio, the Video Studio m odule can be run independently

• r can be caliled

from w ithin the Slide Editor. It allow s the creating , running and m odifying

• f the video

files. . This m odule w ill be designed and im plented by our guide M r. N ikhil H oskeri seperately in the com pany and later on intergrated w ith our tool.

• 6. PRESENTATION

PLAYER

A presentation w ill not be stored as a .EXE file, so it is not standalone. Instead of having to carry the entire softw are w ith him , a developer w ill just have to carry this sm all package along w ith,

• f

course, the presentation itself. Also, since the disk space, this m odule, m ay as an enhacem net, provide com pression utilities for transportation. D ecom posers w ill not be on the fly, but before the presentation.

• 7. INSTALLATION

MODULE

To free the user from the hassles

• f installation,

this m odule w ill be priovided. This m odule w ill request som e basicinputs from the users, such as the directory to be installed to the m odules to be installed etc., This m odule w ill be im plem ented right at the end, w hen all other m odules are com pletely w orking.

• 8. CONCLUSION

Today a w ide variety

• f

resources ranging from business directories to text books are available in various data bases. These have been developed by researchers, w ho have taken lot of pains in com piling them . N ow it is necessary to properly present these data bases to the view er effectively by judicious m ix

• f audio, video

and anim ation. In this paper an authoring tool for presenting data base on a m ultim edia w orkstation is discussed. This kind

• f presentation

tool are bound to increase in future.

• 9. REFERENCES

1. Bose (K) & Khoti (R ) Inform ation databases an overview C SI com m unication,

• V. 18 (7)

Jan. pp.18-21. 2. M ohandas (M .K) & Shet (K.C ) Im pact of m ultim edia in library, paper accepted in XX All India conference

• f IASLIC

at Lucknow U niversity, Lucknow ,26-29. D ec. 1995. 3. P.G .R ao M ultim edia apjjlication, C onference

• n m ultim edia

technology at C FTR I, M ysore, 1995.

4.

Venkat R angan P, Keynote address on M ultim edia Technology at C FTR I, M ysore, 1995.

5.

Kirloskar M ultim edia Ltd., M ultim edia technology and application, Inform ation Technology V.4 (7) M ay 1995, pp-32-33:

6.

G aurav Pal, M ultim edia and the 21st century, C SI C om m unication, N ov. 1994, pp. 37-38.