Platform for distributed multimedia environments supporting arbitrarily nested team structures

Abstract

In this paper a novel platform, HOUCOM™, for the development of team based distributed collaborative applications is presented. Its implementation within a scenario for distributed cooperative virtual product development, ProViT, will be shown, describing the features and advantages of the presented platform. The specified platform consists of a decentrally organized, dynamic and user-configurable architecture. The main entities within the given platform are Conferences (working groups), Sessions (sub-groups), Users, Components, and Shared Resources. The system provides support of hierarchical Session Management, allowing for arbitrarily nested groups and multi-conferencing. Within the given platform Users can be individuals as well as technical devices, e.g. a streaming framework. The ProViT scenario builds a collaborative environment for interactive distributed VR Design reviews for the mechanical engineering industry. Here several distributed clusters form a working group, allowing individual partners to immersively collaborate on 3D models and supplementary documents and communicate via A/V-streaming. This paper divides into three chapters, first describing the ProViT scenario and deriving its requirements. The subsequent chapter examines the novel concept in general and the features that helped meeting the given project requirements in particular. In the conclusion the authors give an outlook on future extensions and applications of the developed platform