SHASTRA-an architecture for development of collaborative applications

The authors address the issue of design of architectures and abstractions to implement multimedia scientific manipulation systems in a concurrent engineering setting, where experts in a cooperating group communicate and interact to solve problems. They propose a model for the integration of software tools into a multi-user distributed and collaborative environment on the multimedia desktop, and describe a prototype CSCW infrastructure used to implement scientific problem solving tools. Finally, they briefly describe a prototype CE system built on this infrastructure. SHASTRA presents a unified prototype for some crucial enabling technologies for concurrent engineering-multimedia communication, framework integration, coordination, and enterprise integration