A new communication tool: time dependent multimedia document

Time dependent multimedia document (TDMD), a tool that supports human communication under distributed computing environments, is described. TDMD supports various types of communication media, including audio, video, text, graphics, and image. Multimedia presentation is formally defined, and it is shown that, TDMD can be represented uniquely as a tree structure. In the structure, hyperlink information can be included by introducing graphical interface buttons, which are treated the same way as other media. The content information included in a button is its visual appearance as a metaphor and the name of a destination node from which successive presentation begins when the button is selected. By using such link information, several browsing paths can be included in TDMD. Buttons also give viewers control over the speed of a presentation