Technology Research
VLab's current demonstration system consists of a server-client system
for multicast on LANs, or between locations that have their network
configured to recieve a multicast. Specific, Multicast Service
Providers have been identified, here,
and an estimates on the pricing of these services are forthcoming.
The links to Mbone and 6bone are an effort to identify the current
scope for global multicast.
For Immediate Reference:
Multicast Load Generation and
Testing
Object Tracking
A key area of Research and Development at VLab is into Pattern Recognition.
Object Tracking Code
Open Source
Geographic Information Systems of interest
Multicast
VLab's solutions provide parrallel multicast streams that can be
recieved by a viewer. Our solutions differ from current layered
multicast research projects, in that we provide an architecture for the
prioritised streaming of regions of large scale images; the image is
spatially coded, rather than providing an incremental image resolution.
Client Driven Layered Multicast overview surveys
General Information on Multicast
Multicast Initiatives
-IGrid- CAVE- CORBA
Viagénie Inc.
IPv6 Applications and Network Services
Following on its successful 6POP.CA project, which was designed to ease the transition to IPv6 for the Canadian R&E community, Viagénie is now undertaking a project with an American organization - ESnet, to create a 6TAP at Chicago STARTAP. The 6TAP will be the first place where research and education IPv6 networks will exchange. Moreover, Viagénie plans to port applications to the new protocol to demonstrate a complete IPv6-based workstation as well as develop an IPv6 route server to increase routing performance. The company will also produce software that will facilitate IPv6 addressing.
Viagénie is a Québec firm that offers information technology consultation services in several areas including network security, electronic commerce and Internet applications. One of the rare Canadian companies with such a high level of IPv6 expertise, Viagénie was the first site in the country connected to the IPv6 6Bone network and currently acts as an IPv6 IP address registrar.
Marc Blanchet
Viagénie Inc.
Marc.Blanchet@viagenie.qc.ca
www.viagenie.qc.ca/en/ipv6/canarie/index.shtml
Ultra Wide Band
Standards and Protocols
Zero Conf
Zero
Conf
Zero Conf stands for Zero Configuration, or the automatic networking of systems, computing services, and applications.
Open GL
Open Graphics Language
OpenGL is the premier environment for developing portable, interactive 2D and 3D graphics applications. Since its introduction in 1992, OpenGL has become the industry's most widely used and supported 2D and 3D graphics application programming interface (API), bringing thousands of applications to a wide variety of computer platforms. OpenGL fosters innovation and speeds application development by incorporating a broad set of rendering, texture mapping, special effects, and other powerful visualization functions. Developers can leverage the power of OpenGL across all popular desktop and workstation platforms, ensuring wide application deployment.
Industry standard
An independent consortium, the OpenGL Architecture Review Board, guides
the OpenGL specification. With broad industry support, OpenGL is the
only truly open, vendor-neutral, multiplatform graphics standard.
Stable
OpenGL implementations have been available for more than seven years on
a wide variety of platforms. Additions to the specification are well
controlled, and proposed updates are announced in time for developers
to adopt changes. Backward compatibility requirements ensure that
existing applications do not become obsolete.
Reliable and portable
All OpenGL applications produce consistent visual display results on
any OpenGL API-compliant hardware, regardless of operating system or
windowing system.
Evolving
Because of its thorough and forward-looking design, OpenGL allows new
hardware innovations to be accessible through the API via the OpenGL
extension mechanism. In this way, innovations appear in the API in a
timely fashion, letting application developers and hardware vendors
incorporate new features into their normal product release cycles.
Scalable
OpenGL API-based applications can run on systems ranging from consumer
electronics to PCs, workstations, and supercomputers. As a result,
applications can scale to any class of machine that the developer
chooses to target.
Easy to use
OpenGL is well structured with an intuitive design and logical
commands. Efficient OpenGL routines typically result in applications
with fewer lines of code than those that make up programs generated
using other graphics libraries or packages. In addition, OpenGL drivers
encapsulate information about the underlying hardware, freeing the
application developer from having to design for specific hardware
features.
Well-documented
Numerous books have been published about OpenGL, and a great deal of
sample code is readily available, making information about OpenGL
inexpensive and easy to obtain.
Open GL on the Mac article.
MANET
Mobile Ad Hoc Networking, IETF
The purpose of this working group is to standardize IP routing
protocol functionality suitable for wireless routing application
within both static and dynamic topologies. The fundamental design
issues are that the wireless link interfaces have some unique routing
interface characteristics and that node topologies within a wireless
routing region may experience increased dynamics, due to motion or
other factors.
Core routing protocols provide a basic set of MANET capabilities.
TinyOS
A tiny operating system.
TinyOS is a component-based runtime environment designed to provide support for deeply embedded systems which require concurrency intensive operations while constrained by minimal hardware resources. For example, originally designed for the Smart Dust hardware platform, our scheduler fits in under 200 bytes of program memory.
This technology could be related to multicast as a database component implemented in software that would operate in a distributed and asynchronous computing environment. An example of this would be visual media objects that could recall their use, or media relations, in previous circumstances.
Tiny OS FAQ
RFCs
-1394-firewire
-USB
- MPEG 2
- SetTopBox Design Standards
Related Open Source Projects.
Video LAN
The VideoLAN project targets
multimedia streaming of MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 and DivX files, DVDs,
digital satellite channels, digital terrestial television channels and
live videos on a high-bandwidth IPv4 or IPv6 network in unicast or
multicast under many OSes. VideoLAN also features a cross-plaform
multimedia player, VLC, which can be used to read the stream from the
network or display video read locally on the computer under all
GNU/Linux flavours, all BSD flavours, Windows, Mac OS X, BeOS, Solaris,
QNX, Familiar Linux. Video Lan is an Open Source Project.
MESH AP
Wireless Mesh Networking.
Locust World with Mesh AP,
really likes wireless technology.
"There is a huge potential in free community networks, as idealised by www.communitywireless.org. Where every part of the network is owned and operated by the users themselves.
We will research and make this technology available to everyone at the
lowest cost we can. Where required, we will also help by providing live
prototype networks and application development. Our primary interest is
simply in providing the enabling technology to make this dream work.
"
There are several Research Projects underway in Canada, that relate to the streaming of panoramic video, or dimensional environments:
These are:
The Tornado Theater
Tornado Theatre - Live 360° Streaming Performance
Tornado Theatre wants to be the first to broadcast live immersive drama over the Internet. Using state-of-the-art 360° video streaming technology as its cornerstone, Tornado Theatre will conceive, produce and broadcast unique theatre-like shows from its website at www.tornadotheatre.com.
Contact: Jason Whiting, Tornado Theatre
Tel: 514-369-4477 / Fax: 514-848-4525 / Email: jasonw@tornadotheatre.ca
Sonic Designs Interactive
Sonic Designs Interactive
Sonic Design Interactive (http://www.sonicdesign.fm) an Ottawa-based experimental media studio. Director Michael Bussière has also founded the diploma in sonic design offered by Carleton University. This unique program provides students with a focused training in musical applications in the computing field. The object is to prepare students for creative work within a variety of digital music, audio and experimental media.
RACOL: Project
RACOL will explore how broadband networks can bring rich educational resources, such as broadcast quality video and collaborative learning environments, to learners in even the most remote community. The project will focus on secondary school students in the Fort Vermilion School Division #52 in northern Alberta and will take advantage of Alberta's SuperNet broadband network.
With $1.3 million in CANARIE funding, the project is led by the
University of Alberta in collaboration with the Fort Vermilion School
Division, the University of Calgary, the Banff Centre, Sonic Design
Incorporated, Northern Alberta Institute of Technology and the
Netera Alliance.
The University of Victoria
The "Moveable Feast"
"If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast."
- Ernest Hemingway to a friend, 1950
A mixed reality project.
The "Moveable Feast" project will develop an environment allowing up to sixteen participants in two locations to interact via their movements in physical spaces of large extent. These spaces will located at the University of Alberta and the University of Victoria and be linked by a CA*net 3 network connection controlling robotic lighting, video projection, and multi-speaker digital sound systems. These will form the palette with which to construct a series of experimental interactive content experiences that demonstrate the potential of media-active spaces for entertainment, work, or learning.
Acoustic Positioning Research (APR) Inc. is a Canadian technology R&D company. Since 1992, APR Inc. has pioneered development of wide-area, tetherless 3D tracking and the creation of integrated "media-active" environments where computer controlled video, lighting, and sound interact with participants.
Will Bauer
Acoustic Positioning Research (APR) Inc.
apr.inc@shawbiz.ca
http://www.positioning-research.com/feast/HTML/what.htm
Société
des Arts Technologiques
SAT
Open Terretories Ouverte, Project.
The Open Territories project, made possible through the Canadian
Culture Online Program of Canadian Heritage, aims to foster the
emergence of innovative forms of
cultural expression by engaging the creativity of a new generation of
artists and creators, in whose hands will be placed a host of advanced
interface and networking
technologies. A network of partners will enable the scientific,
artistic and cultural communities to gather together to address issues
of creation, dissemination and
development of new audiences. Accordingly to its mandate, the Society
for Arts and Technology (SAT) together with its network of
institutional and private partners,
will be able to open the broadband network environment to talented
creators who are ideally placed to illustrate broadband's potential as
a means of avant-garde cultural
expression. To accomplish this goal, the SAT intends to focus its
energies on the development of three creative platforms to be deployed
on the Canadian broadband
network, which the SAT will then put at the disposal of various
creators. The three platforms are:
IP streaming video and
mulitichannel audio
IP telepresence (point-to-point
and multi-point)
Transmission of immersive
audio-visual environments over IP networks
Director of SAT:
Luc Corchesne/ Archives
Luc Courchesne is professor of design at Université de
Montréal and president of the Society for Art and Technology.
http://www.iamas.ac.jp/prj/i95/courchesne_e.html
Demonstration System - Image Capture and Display
VLab is preparing to offer a Turn-Key solution for Immersive Interactive Image Environments, this is being accomplished through alliances to provide image capture and display.
FullView produces a panoramic
video camera.
Silicon Optix technology is
used in a Video projector that automatically corrects the projected
image for off axis projection.
Projectors using Silicon Optix technology can be obtained from
Mesh Warping Image Correction
A general overview of Mesh Warping and source code, can be found at the extensive site produced by Paul Bourke.
Mesh Warping solutions are available from a number of companies:
Panoram Technologies solution: PanomakerV
Vizbox provides display solutions which include hardware options for image correction.
Quantum 3d. provides rack mount hardware, under the product name Obsidian nV. This provides support for Microsoft® Windows® 2000 and Linux operating systems, and support for OpenGL® 1.2. Quantum 3D provides a white paper (pdf) on video interlacing as it relates to a buffer swap between client computers. This is similar to the work that is outlined in Don Brunzeman's OpenGL p anoramic display tutorial.
Quantum 3D's, Obsidian nV is compatible with virtually all leading scene management products, including optimized versions of MultiGen-Paradigm Vega, SensorVision and SensorWorks, Lockheed Martin® SE/View, Soft Reality SoftVR, CG2 V-Tree and Mantis, Thales Simulation and Training SpaceMagic, Corys/TESS, CATI X-IG, and OpenGVS.
The scene manegment products listed above, are products that will be catalouged at a futur date on VLab's web site. For the moment we can provide a link to the Open Scene Graph, Source Forge project.
Sky-Skan software for windows planetarium projection system, for off center projection.
Elumens free software, for spherical projection of images, and an API for SGI using Open GL. This Company markets small screens and a center based projector solution.
VLab and Video Compression
The Visual Priority Streaming system will soon be featured as a demonstration system, having an SGI based system with hardware MJPEG compression.
Metrics on video data rates can be found here. Spec ratings on the CPUs can be found here.
MPEG 4
VLab is considering the development of an MPEG-4 CODEC to be integrated with the system, a discussion of the advantages of MPEG-4 as it relates to VLab is here.
An interm step, may be to offer third party MPEG-4 compression that feeds into the VPS prioritizing server.
A list of MPEG-4 server companies is available here.
Data Compression Information , links to data compression information related to MPEG. There are links to Open Source and Reference Libraries for MPEG 4, including GPAC, MPEGIP, Project Mayo, and others.
We are preparing an estimates of pricing for third party multi-channel
MPEG-4 and MPEG-2 compression.
VPS is well suited to the streaming of composite images, naturally VLab has an interest in the encoding of the images to be composited.
Image Background / Object Extraction
- a tutorial
(PDF) on object extraction, and specifics on how this relates to image
encoding in MPEG-4.
Image Mesh Warping and Scalable Video Encoding
Information about Spatial Information Capture, and its relation to
video encoding, can be found under product design.
VLab plans to license its network technology for use in an integrated consumer product. As such; we are keeping up with developments as they relate to hardware components.
Processor
-dual Power4
-embedded
Network
-Ultra Wide Band Radar
- Zero Conf
- P2P
-meshnetworks
-freenet (encryption)
-swarm streaming
Storage
- FeRAM, MRAM, Carbon Nanotube
- Holographic Storage
- Florescing Multilayer
- Blue Ray
Human Interface
-Spatial Information Capture
- Ultra Wide Band Radar
- Gestural User Interface
Display
- Spatial display
- Holographic Projection
- Stereoscopy
- Geodeisic Domes
- Helium Dirigables and Airfoils.
- Fogscreen
Power
- Battery power density
- Fuel Cell technology
Fuel Cell technology
No one has yet made a Fuel Cell one small enough to match the size of a current laptop battery. Having a flammable compound like methanol inside a laptop raises all sorts of new safety issues. Late last year the Department of Transportation ruled that methanol fuel cells could be taken aboard domestic aircraft, but there is still no international clearance for the devices.
At present there?s not another new battery ingredient on the horizon that can substantially beat lithium-ion.
Electrovaya, a Canadian startup, has a lithium-ion polymer technology already on sale that lets laptops run for 8 to 16 hours; they also sell a TabletPC, less than an inch thick, that runs for 12 hours on a single charge. NASA recently licensed Electrovaya?s battery for use during space walks, and a GM-Suzuki joint venture is building a lithium-ion powered vehicle. Electrovaya's CEO, Sankar Das Gupta, believes that ultimately lithium-ion polymers will beat fuel cells in miniaturization and energy capacity.
Serial Network Device Control
Thaddeus Thomas developed the serial network device controls that made the Printer Symphony possible.
- The
Printer Symphony
- The
User and Thaddeus
Totally Neat Gadgets a control interface for computers.
PULSAR is a project to rethink the needs of the exceptional computer user and invent perceptually and expressionally optimal interfaces for dynamically interacting with information.
NeatTools - Software for building a data flow network, free download of
NeatTools beta
Totally Neat Gadgets (TNG's) - Hardware interface which plugs into PC
serial port.
NeatTools Joymouse Module - dataflow network for a joystick-controlled
mouse cursor.
Grid Flow a JMAX media control Programming environment
The philosophy that guides jMax is a simple but powerful one: the software must first provide the user with generic tools rather than imposing pre-cooked effects. In other words the user should have total freedom.
GridFlow follows that philosophy: it first defines elementary mathematical operations. Those can in turn be used as simple visual effects or be combined to produce more complex effects.
The strategy followed by most video plugins for jMax/Max/PureData is to provide the user first with constructs for manipulating video streams at a fairly high level. The strategy put forward by GridFlow is different.
It can be said that in all those video plugins there are three layers: the first, the low level, is not accessible to non-programmers (and fairly difficult of access even to programmers); the second, mathematical, where one needs not to be a C++ programmer, but still requires a good understanding of how numbers and pixels and colours and geometry work; and a third level that looks more like the software an artist would like to use.
In other video plugins there is a fairly low emphasis on the second layer. In GridFlow that layer is very strong and opens many possibilities. Even though the third layer in GridFlow is not as developed as it could, the second layer may be used to produce third-layer object classes much more quickly.
JMAX
jMax is a visual programming environment for building interactive real-time music and multimedia applications.
jMax is a new implementation of the MAX software written originally by Miller Puckette at Ircam. The name MAX is an homage to Max Matthews, one of the fathers of computer music.
The MAX concepts
MAX reuses the patchable modular analog synthesizer metaphor. You build
patches by placing modules on a graphic surface and connecting these
modules together with patch cords. The connections represent paths on
which values or signal streams are send between the modules. These
modules are either processing units (arithmetics, timing, ...), data
containers (tables, ...), system inputs and outputs (audio, MIDI, ...).