Construction of distributed multimedia applications using multiple views

Distributed multimedia programs often require sophisticated user interactions, distributed object allocations and timely exchange of multimedia data across heterogeneous networks. These applications are inherently complex and their construction presents an extraordinary design and programming challenge. Multimedia programs typically consist of different aspects of requirements that may refer to user interaction, quality of service or the temporal order among media streams. As such, the software architecture of these programs is generally made up of multiple views, each capturing a certain aspect of the requirements. The authors propose a method to develop distributed multimedia applications using multiple views, which can be separately specified and reused. The method is supported by a Distributed Multimedia System Environment (DMSE) and the associated runtime support on Sun operating systems. Multimedia applications such as a video phone system, a videoconferencing system and a distributed city tour application have been successfully constructed using the environment. The method is illustrated using a city tour application that features distributed controls, collaborative work and multimedia presentations