An underlying thought that motivated the writing of this book is that somehow the gap between authoring and retrieval should be bridged.
In other words, either by developing the technology for extracting features or attributes from multimedia objects, or by applying content annotation for such objects, multimedia information retrieval should be considered as a necessary asset to make a multimedia web an effective information repository.
what do you need to learn
When taking up multimedia as a subject of study,
you may ask yourself what you need to know and learn about it.
In general, what this book presents is
what do we have to learn?
- concepts,
- facts,
- history,
- applications
- standards
- technology
- multimedia
Let me be frank with you.
There is too much information to be digested in a first course.
Nevertheless, after studying this book you will have an introduction
to multimedia that should be viable for the rest
of your (academic) career.
Now, don't hesitate, put yourself to the test
and check which phrases and acronyms you are familiar with
in the lists given for the subjects of
digital convergence,
broadband communication and
information retrieval.
digital convergence
- concepts -- digital revolution
- facts -- from the entertainment industry
- history -- from Pong to Big Brother
- applications -- infotainment
- standards -- MPEG, RM3D, SMIL
- technology -- TV, PC, DVD
...
How did you succeed thus far?
If you did well, try the second round and test yourself in
what detail you have have knowledge about technologies
mentioned.
broadband communication
- concepts -- Quality of Service
- facts -- compression is needed
- history -- the internet
- applications -- entertainment and communication
- standards -- HTTP, TCP/IP, RTP
- technology -- cable, (X)DSL
...
Finally, check to what extent you master the vocabulary
of multimedia information retrieval.
multimedia information retrieval
- concepts -- features, precision, recall
- facts -- the problem is utterly complex
- history -- from text to multimedia
- applications -- digital libraries
- standards -- distance metrics
- technology -- indexing & algorithms
If you are working online, you may click back to the text in the book
that explains these notions.
Just to make sure whether your impression of familiarity was justified.
assignment
I strongly believe that practical work is necessary,
also for academics,
to get a good grasp on multimedia.
Even if your interest is purely intellectual,
it pays off to make your virtual hands dirty
and indulge in making a compelling presentation.
As an assignment, consider making a presentation that offers an
Annotated Tour in Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the place where I live, and where our
students take their courses.
You may find it more convenient or natural to
replace Amsterdam with a location of your choice.
Online, you will find an elaborated version of the assignment,
including an extended description, a working plan,
deliverables and hints.
In essence though, the intent of the assignment is
to make a compelling, not to say artistic, presentation,
and to explore the realm of multimedia rethorics.
As a tool you may choose, for example, for
Macromedia Director or Flash.
The online material contains a introductory manual for Director,
so that you can start right away.
examination
Despite the fact that some consider the practical aspects
of multimedia to be exclusively relevant,
the intellectual aspects of multimedia should not be ignored.
Consider the following question, which is directly
related to the theme underlying this book,
that is the complementarity of authoring and retrieval:
This question can only be answered when the student
has a sufficient level of experience, insight and
knowledge of the field, and is able to relate theory and practice.
Each chapter contains a brief list of questions
that may be used as a checklist,
to see if you have sufficient knowledge of
a particular area.
These questions may also be used to prepare exams!
The questions are meant to test for insight,
that is the ability to discuss a somewhat broader theme,
and knowledge of concepts
and technology,
covering definitions, applications, historical facts, as well
as the technological infrastructure enabling the deployment
of multimedia applications.
In addition to the regular material, the book also contains
a number of sections indicating research directions. These sections are not meant to be part of the exam, but might provide the student
with suggestions for projects or further research.
Moreover, both the discussions in the research directions
and the material in the appendices presents a vision on what
multimedia should be.
In effect, I have a strong preference for a programmatic approach
to (intelligent) multimedia, as outlined in appendix [platform].
Nevertheless, the bulk of the (regular) material is relevent also
for readers with a rather different opinion on
what consitutes the essence of multimedia.
online information
The CDROM contains the full online version of the course notes.
Open the file
index.html in Netscape Navigator or
Microsoft Internet Explorer, and click on readme
for an explanation or introduction multimedia
to access the material.
The online version provides you with both an HTML-based
presentation format, as well as a VRML-based format, for
presenting the lectures in class.
The blaxxun Contact 3D VRML browser you need for this may be freely obtained
from www.blaxxun.com.
The course notes are also available at http://www.cs.vu.nl/~eliens/mm/imm/college
how to use this book
The intended audience for this book is
- students (beginning and advanced)
- instructors
- professionals and interested laymen
The course notes were explicitly written for first year
Computer Science and Information Science students.
(The Information Science students are expected to choose
the specialisation Multimedia and Culture, a curriculum
provided by the Division of Mathematics and Computer Science
of the Faculty of Sciences of the Free University of Amsterdam).
The course has a practical part and a theoretical part,
which in combination takes 2-4 weeks, full time study.
The book covers the theoretical part.
The online version gives a skeleton assignment that
may adapted by the one responsible for the course.
The online version contains all the material needed for
presentation, including
- presentations for all chapters, including the preface
in dynamic HTML and VRML slides
- a manual for Macromedia Director,
also available in presentation format
- presentable versions of the MPEG-4 standard,
and other relevant material
- possible exam questions, with back links into the text
for quick learning and review
- seven sample lectures, with additional explanation for
the instructor
One additional remark may be made. This is (so to speak)
'a book with an attitude'. It is slightly authorative
and directive towards the students, telling them to learn
the facts and 'do the exam'.
Some students take refuge to learning the 'keywords and phrases'.
They are even helped in this respect, since the text uses
a 'graphic' layout to emphasize important points, and
to allow for a quick recognition of chunks of relevant material.
acknowledgements
This book is the result of developing
the course notes for an introduction to multimedia
for first year Computer Science and Information Science students.
Hence, first of all, I like to thank the students that
had to endure the first rough drafts of this material.
Further I like to thank Harrie van der Lubbe and Sander
Lammers for developing the manual for Director
and their support in developing the practical assignment.
Also, I like to thank Martin Kersten from CWI for
allowing me to join his Multimedia Database Systems research group
as a guest for a period of about two years, and Alex van Ballegooij
for his active involvement in the RIF project and
his coding effort for the slide PROTOs, used
to produce the presentation slides for this book and described
in appendix [Web3D].
Also from CWI, I like to thank Lloyd Ruttledge, Lynda Hardman
and Jacco van Ossenbruggen, for their effort
in thinking about the multimedia course in its initial stages,
and Lloyd and Jacco for their involvement in some of
the practical work, and Jacco in particular for
his knowledge of hypermedia systems that he shared with me
during the period that he was my Ph.D. student.
From CWI, I like to thank Zsofi Ruttkay for her general
interest in 'my projects'.
From the VU, I like to thank Andy Tanenbaum
for allowing me to use his material on digital video,
Gerrit van der Veer
for taking the initiative for Multimedia and Culture,
Zhisheng Huang for his excellent contributions to the WASP
project,
and
Claire Dormann, for our discussions on
the direction the Multimedia and Culture
curriculum should take, and for sharing
her thoughts
on persuasive technology with me.
I also like to thank Tatja Scholte from ICN
(Netherlands Institute for Cultural Heritage)
for her contributions to the multimedia casus.
Finally, I must mention that I owe much insight
and material to (among others) the following
books and articles: [MMDBMS], [Convergence], [Spaces],
[Hypermedia], [Codecs] and [Magic].
As in any intellectual endeavor, intellectual ancestry can
hardly be praised enough.
So let me briefly indicate, for each chapter, some of the sources
that provided me with inspiration, insight and material:
references
- [Convergence], [Entertainment], [Experience].
- [Spaces], [Hypermedia], [Magic].
- [Codecs], [MPEG-4], [Web].
- [MMDBMS], [IR].
- [MMDBMS], [Meldex], [ACOI].
- [MMDBMS], [Networked].
- [Networked], [Navigation], [Community].
Only the material in sections 6.1, 6.3 and 7 reflects
my own research efforts.
The other material has all been diligently collected
from (among others) the sources mentioned.
[]
readme
preface
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
appendix
checklist
powerpoint
resources
director
eliens@cs.vu.nl
draft version 1 (16/5/2003)
