A system for developing and presenting distributed interactive multimedia applications is presented.
The model builds on the basic concept of multimedia objects, whose characteristics are represented by a set of statuses. Each status combines a part of the object internal state, the related actions and the events the object can send to the exterior to announce changes in that part of the object.
All the concepts related with multimedia objects are typed, the relevant information being stored in a database so that all the applications and tools in the system know the possibilities available at any moment. This feature can be used as a support for expansion of the system and allows for consistency checks at each step of the application development.
A language based on process algebras is defined, and used to specify the multimedia applications. A generic compilation algorithm for that language is used in a compiler, to generate state machines.
A target application consists of sets of multimedia objects interacting
with each other in time, space and logically. The approach in
the thesis was to control this interaction from a distributed
point of view - Each object interprets its own state machine derived
from the overall specification.