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As part of its concern to underpin the provision of computer graphics, visualization and multimedia, AGOCG held a workshop in December 1993 to address the issues of "Multimedia in Higher Education: Networking and Portability" the results of which are published as AGOCG Technical Report 24. This workshop tied in with the proposal from AGOCG for the Support Initiative for Multimedia Applications which has now been funded by the JISC New Technologies Initiative. The New Technologies Initiative is expected to be a 3 year initiative of the JISC. This has funded projects in a range of topics which reflect new areas of technology and their application. The projects are concerned with demonstrating the use of new technology to the higher education community through, for example, setting up services, training, and dissemination of good practice.
The main elements of the Support Initiative for Multimedia Applications are:
It aims to build on the model of AGOCG which will act as a steering group for the Initiative. The projects in the first year will implement some of the recommendations of the AGOCG workshop. These recognise that multimedia is a technology which will be vital to many areas in higher education, yet the main developments will be industry-led. In higher education we need to be looking to support people using the new technology and to assist them in setting up an infrastructure with appropriate hardware and software.
AGOCG are looking to appoint a Support Officer as soon as possible and it is hoped that information regarding the appointment will be given in the next Newsletter. We see this as a key element in the Initiative.
The following projects have been identified by the JISC New Technologies Committee for the first 6 months: report and guidelines on image capture; survey of current hardware and software; report on storage formats; image rich information server demonstration.
The list of sites being invited to tender for projects is based on those sites which submitted project proposals and indicated an interest in the Initiative when it was launched prior to its submission to JISC. If you are not on this list but would like to be then send me full contact details.
The Joint Funding Councils' Review Group on library provision in higher education was established in 1992 and was chaired by Prof Sir Brian Follett. The Group reported to the Funding Councils and DENI in December 1993. The Report concentrated on making recommendations to the Funding Councils which were practical and likely to achieve maximum benefit. It is founded on an assessment of likely changes over the next five to ten years, and an appreciation of the enormous diversity of library and related provision within higher education.
The Group focused on the need for major change and its proposals reflect this. They are however intended to build on the many existing strengths and the substantial achievements to date of libraries in higher education.
The above summary is given by the Higher Education Funding Council's leaflet summarising the results of the review. The report gives proposals in the areas of: provision; management; resources; supporting both teaching and research; copyright; and perhaps of most interest to readers of this newsletter, the role of IT. The summary says of this area:
Recent developments in information technology present major opportunities and challenges for academic libraries. The Review Group devoted much attention to how information technology can help to meet the needs of library users and library management over the next decade. It proposes that the Funding Councils should jointly invest about £20 million over three years in support of a series of development projects designed to further the use of IT in selective areas. Most of these recommendations would be implemented within an IT oriented libraries initiative under the auspices of the Funding Councils' Joint Information Systems Committee. This would run for a finite period and would be guided by an expert advisory group and supported by a programme co-ordinator.
The Report says that this investment should include the development of standards, pilot projects to demonstrate the potential of on-demand publishing and electronic document and article delivery, a feasibility project to promote the development of electronic journals in conjunction with relevant publishing interests, the development of a database and datasets strategy, investment in navigational tools, retrospective conversion of certain catalogues, and investment in the further development of library automation and management systems. It is argued that the exploitation of IT is essential to create the effective library service of the future.
AGOCG are considering its role in any projects which may come out of funding as a result of the Follett Review. One thing that has been of interest is the way that online document storage, access and delivery might enhance access to, and understanding of, information. There is a need for intelligent documents which include, or have access to, the data being discussed; which incorporate graphical information in a useful way. There are many challenges here and AGOCG will be discussing these in the near future.
The Report and summary brochure are available from HEFCE.
A UK User Group has been established for users of the Application Visualization System (AVS). The user group has J R Gallop, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, as the chairman and W T Hewitt, Computer Graphics Unit, Manchester Computing Centre, as the secretary. Membership is open to all, not only residents of the UK. The main source of members is the territory of the UK offices of AVS/UNIRAS Ltd, which covers northern Europe.
The purpose of the group is to encourage the free exchange of information concerning visualization and the products and services of AVS/UNIRAS Ltd and to provide a focal point for the needs and requirements of its members. The group will also liaise with AVS/UNIRAS Ltd, the AVS Consortium and the International AVS Center.
The user group also organises a number of local meetings within the UK with presentations from AVS users in both academia and industry.
Membership entitles members to reduced rates for local meetings and publicity material including copies of the International User Group's newsletter AVS Network News.
There are two classes of membership:
The Advisory Group on Computer Graphics have provided funding for the Computer Graphics Unit, University of Manchester to join the Khoros Consortium initially for a one year period. This article outlines the major developments in the Khoros package and some additional information for new users of Khoros. The article finishes with a reminder for Application Visualization System (AVS) users that a large number of the Khoros modules have been ported so they can be used within the AVS environment.
Khoros is an integrated software development environment for information processing and visualization, based on UNIX and the X Windows system. Khoros components include a visual programming language, code generators for extending the visual language and adding new application packages to the system, an interactive user interface editor, an interactive image display package, an extensive library of image processing, numerical analysis and signal processing routines, and 20/30 plotting packages.
There are a number of official FTP sites which carry the latest version (Khoros 1.0 Patch 5) and these sites include the Manchester Computing Centre anonymous FTP site. The address for this site is ftp.mcc.ac.uk (130.88.203.12) and the software can be found under the directory pub/cgu/khoros. To log into the site you must supply either anonymous or ftp as the username and your email address as the password.
The Khoros Group's official FTP site is ftp.eece.unm.edu (129.24.24.119) and Khoros and all associated files can be found under the directory /pub/khoros. In all cases it is recommended that you first obtain the install.ftp, install.ms, or install.ps installation document found in the release/directory, and read it before attempting to obtain the Khoros system.
There are two different sets of Khoros training course notes available; the Khoros Training Course notes and the Image Processing Short Course notes. An Instructor's set is available for the Khoros Training course only, and includes a set of lecture transparencies and one copy of the Student's manual. The Khoros Training Course Students' manual includes lecture notes and exercises.
The notes are available at a cost and to obtain an order form and more details please email khorosrequest@chama.eece.unm.edu and request an order form.
Khoros 1.5 was released in May 1992. Since that time the Khoros Group have been working on 2.0. This is a major rewrite of most of the whole system. The following files are available from the Manchester Computing Centre anonymous FTP site in directory pub/cgu/khoros/khoros_2.0.
overview.ps.Z an overview of the design of 2.0
dataserve_tk.ps.z describes the data services library: the abstract data object and associated libraries which hides details of file formats from the programmer and facilitate polymorphic data operations.
The public release of Khoros 2.0 will be available towards the middle of 1994.
There is an electronic email list available for users to send technical questions and queries concerning Khoros. To join the Khoros electronic mail list you should send requests to khoros-request@chama.cece.unm.cdu
The International AVS Center, North Carolina Supercomputer Center, have previously ported a large number of the Khoros modules for use within the Application Visualization System (AVS) environment. These modules are all available from the anonymous FTP site at the University of Manchester ftp.mcc.ac.uk (130.88.203.12).
For example to obtain the modules you would first type the following:
ftp ftp.mcc.ac.uk or ftp 130.88.203.12
When you are connected to the server you should login as anonymous and supply your email address as the password. To access the Khoros modules you must move to the subdirectory pub/cgu/avs/avs_modules/khoros:
ftp> cd pub/cgu/avs avs modules/khoros
For any more information or queries on this article please contact me.
Have you ever wondered what platforms a certain visualization system supports or whether there is an electronic mail list, user group or public domain repository of modules available for the system?
Most of this information and more can always be found in the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) file which is maintained for each system. Unfortunately though, another Frequently Asked Question about visualization systems is Where can I find FAQ file? To enable users to find these FAQ files more easily the following short list has been compiled for the Application Visualization System (AVS), IBM Data Explorer, Iris Explorer and Khoros. All the FAQ's are available via anonymous FTP from the University of Manchester and the list also shows the originating FTP site.
A new AGOCG-funded tutorial on the X-Designer Graphic User Interface builder is now available for the UK Higher Education/ Research community (for non-commercial, non-profit-making purposes).
X-Designer is an X application which allows you to design a graphic user interface, using the Motif widget set, and working interactively so that you can see your design on-screen as you develop it. X-Designer then generates C or C++ code which will implement the interface you have designed, so that you can incorporate it into an application program of your own.
X-Designer is a product of Imperial Software Technology Ltd of Reading. It has been very favourably reviewed in various publications. A CHEST agreement is currently being negotiated and, in the interim, 1ST will supply X-Designer direct, on the same terms as will be incorporated into the CHEST deal.
This is a one-day tutorial for newcomers to X-Designer who are not already familiar with X and Motif programming. It is intended for those who come to X-Designer at an early stage in developing an interactive application.
If you have worked with other graphic user interface systems Microsoft Windows or Macintosh, for instance - this tutorial will provide a useful introduction to Motif, as well as experience with X-Designer.
When you have finished the tutorial, you will be able to use X-Designer to construct a user interface for an application program. You will know enough about Motif to make a sensible choice of components for the interface. You will also know something about the principles of programming with Motif, which will help you to design and implement the application program behind your user interface.
The tutorial can be presented as lectures, or used for self-teaching. It consists of lecture or reading material plus a large practical exercise.
The lecture/reading material consists of a set of viewfoils and a workbook. All the viewfoils are reproduced in the workbook, together with extensive notes, which form the basis of a script for the lecturer.
The course organiser has to get viewfoils and workbooks, and instructions for the practical exercises, printed from the masters.
Workstations/X-terminals must be accessible for all the trainees, for the practical exercises. These must provide an X/Motif development environment (Xl1 RS, Motif 1.2) with editors, compilers, Makefiles etc., and XDesigner release 3. They should also have the sample solutions available on-line. X, Motif and XDesigner documentation should be available for reference.
Trainees must be competent C programmers. They must be familiar with the user interface of at least one graphic user interface with windows, icons, menus and pointers (e.g. X Windows, Microsoft Windows, Macintosh).
The tutorial can be obtained as a master set of pages, which can be copied as required to make the materials for each presentation. The set costs £50. Order it from Marie Cope, Edinburgh University Computing Service.
These training materials are funded by the Advisory Group on Computer Graphics (AGOCG) which is an initiative of the Joint Information Systems Committee of the Higher Education Funding Councils.
Imperial Software Technology provided extensive and invaluable support, including a licence for X-Designer. IST has also granted permission to incorporate the tutorial sections of the X-Designer User's Guide as the practical exercise of this course, with limited permission to reproduce 1ST's copyright material for trainees.
A new ACOCC-funded tutorial on the agX Toolmaster subroutine libraries and widget set is now available for the UK Higher Education/Research community (for non-commercial, non-profitmaking purposes).
agX Toolmaster includes a library of 2-d and 3-d graphics subroutines callable from C, providing the same functionality as the Uniras FORTRAN subroutine library, with comprehensive support for many kinds of graphs, charts, contours, rendering, and so forth.
agX Toolmaster also provides more support for programming in the X Windows environment than previous Uniras products. In particular, it provides a set of Motif-compliant widgets, based on the X Toolkit Intrinsics, which encapsulate Uniras functionality and which can be incorporated in any application program with a Motif user interface.
agX Toolmaster is a product of AVS/Uniras Ltd. It is available under a CHEST agreement.
This is a one-day tutorial for newcomers to X and Motif who want to use the Uniras agX libraries for graphics and data presentation. It also discusses the agx/Toolmaster widgets, and the mechanisms of programming with widgets in general. It covers the essential ideas of X and Motif programming. At the end of the tutorial, trainees will know enough to start writing their own programs and to use the X, Motif and agX documentation.
The tutorial can be presented as lectures, or used for self-teaching. It consists of lecture or reading material, plus a number of example programs which are discussed and analysed in the course. There is no practical exercise.
The lecture/reading material consists of a set of viewfoils and a workbook. All the viewfoils are reproduced in the workbook, together with extensive notes, which form the basis of a script for the lecturer.
There are also 45 supplementary viewfoils showing the Uniras demonstration programs. They illustrate the range of functions and widgets and their user interfaces.
The course organiser has to get viewfoils and workbooks, and listings of the example programs, printed from the masters.
Trainees must be competent C programmers. An acquaintance with the general ideas of graphics programming is required. It is an advantage to understand the purpose and general structure of the X Window system.
The tutorial can be obtained as a master set of pages, which can be copied as required to make the materials for each presentation. The set costs £50. Order it from Marie Cope, Edinburgh University Computing Service.
The material is also available in machine-readable form, free of charge (to UK Higher Education institutions), by anonymous ftp from x-training.ed.ac.uk - look in the directory x-training. Framemaker version 3 or 4 is needed to process it.
Further course material on Motif programming (in a similar format to this tutorial) is already available through the IITI Initiative, and may be used to supplement this course. Master copies of that can be obtained from Jean Burgan, Sheffield University.
These training materials are funded by the Advisory Group on Computer Graphics (AGOCG) which is an initiative of the Joint Information Systems Committee of the Higher Education Funding Councils.
Microsoft is developing two operating systems in the 'Windows' family. One due out later this year is the successor to Windows 3, and continues the evolution of the desktop PC's interface.
The other is Windows NT, a multiplatform, multi-process operating system which was released last year. This has been designed from the outset to be a network-wide operating system, so that people will be able to access information on each others' workstations as easily as on their own. Looking a lot like the ordinary Windows, Windows NT goes beyond it to provide a broader base for Microsoft's operating system.
The European Microsoft Windows NT Academic Centre - EMWAC has been set up in the University to support and act as a focus for Windows NT in academia. It is sponsored by Datalink Computers, Digital, Microsoft, Research Machines, Sequent and the University of Edinburgh. Its aim is to support UK academia directly and to promote similar centres throughout Europe, for which it will act as a focal point. The Centre will pioneer the use of Windows NT in the academic community.
The Centre opened on 5th January. The staff, all already in EUCS, are:
All helpdesk and project staff have fulfilled the Certified Professional Exams requirements.
The Centre will help to run academic roadshows, produce regular newsletters, and use all the usual academic methods of spreading information. lt will run technical workshops around the country and will build up paper and electronic repositories of useful information.
Four main projects have been established within the Centre to begin with, as well as numerous relatively minor software porting projects to underpin all the Centre's activity:
EMWAC runs a national discussion list for people who are interested in Windows NT. To join this, send an email message containing the text join windows-nt your first name your last name to mailbase@mailbase.ac.uk.
Visualization 93 took place 25-29 October 1993 in San Jose, California, and attracted 560 delegates to the week's program of Tutorials, Panels, Papers and Case Studies. It was also held in conjunction with the first Symposium on Research Frontiers in Virtual Reality, 25-26 October.
The Symposium on Research Frontiers in VR comprised 4 Paper Sessions, 2 Panels (Evaluation of VR Systems: Experience and Advice, and Effective Non-Speech Audio for Virtual Reality), a Poster Session, a Keynote Lecture by Prof Fred Brooks, and an Invited Lecture by Prof Andries van Dam. 110 delegates attended.
This report summarises the Keynote Address; the conference will be covered in a further article.
The Keynote Address on Hype and Hope - What is Rea]? was given by Prof Fred Brooks, Kenan Professor of Computer Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr Brooks was Corporate Project Manager for the System/360 at IBM, including the development of the System/360 family hardware and the Operating System/360 software, for which he shared the National Medal of Technology with Bob Evans and Erich Bloch, and for which he received the IEEE Computer Society MacDowell Award. His research has been in computer architecture, software engineering, and interactive 3D computer graphics. His best known book is The Mythical Man Month: Essays on Software Engineering which has sold over 200,000 copies.
Prof Brooks covered four principal topics:
Hope was best exemplified by Dr Sutherland's 1965 vision:
Hype was best illustrated by some of the articles in the popular press, and a 1990 Siggraph Panel with the title Hip, Hype, and Hope... which seemed to have been designed to wow rather than to inform. Journalists have jumped on to the VR bandwaggon and may well be raising expectations too high.
How can we distinguish hope from hype? This involved assessment of serious applications. For example, the US Defence Science Board was looking at mili tary applications of VR. Honest and accurate status reports were needed for developments in VR. Developers and users should not hide the truth about the difficulties of using some of the interfaces or the equipment. Estimates of the future should be sober and without undue decoration.
There are three criteria for assessing VR systems:
It is anticipated that the entertainment industry will essentially pay for all the required developments in technology for VR. Whether the entertainment applications are actually useful or not is very much a secondary issue - VR for entertainment is certainly perceived to be a major growth area. An interesting question was whether VR was a kind of extension to TV, i.e. telepresence rather than television, and if so what could be learned from our experience of TV that could be utilised in VR? Television highlights the following characteristics:
Considering VR as an extension to TV, the following points can be made:
VR almost works. It exhibited the following:
Looking at the applications, there are the following key areas to date:
The near-term hopes in the applications domain included problems that will be solved by computer scientists, driving problems, and using imageguided surgical procedures via medical imaging and reconstruction, archi tectural design, and interactive shopping. It had already been noticed that 50% of laproscopic operations on gall bladders were unsuccessful, caused principally by the very limited field of view provided by the light pipe compared to the normal way a surgeon worked. VR now had the capability of providing both the narrow field of view via the light pipe and the wide field of view from images of the patient, superimposed as if it were all the real patient. This should greatly assist the accuracy of the surgical procedures. Thus minimally invasive techniques could be performed more successfully with VR assistance.
What have we proved so far with VR? Everyone feels as if they're present, but not for long. In perception, we are able to form a picture of 3D world models - these are particularly useful in medical and molecular areas - for the worlds we cannot normally 'see', and also for situation awareness in military training and simulation scenarios. Personal control aids perception - it seems that when the user controls the model, he has better information than just by eye alone. Direct manipulation facilitates tasks such as molecule fitting, folding, docking - giving a 10:1 speedup on fitting. A force display significantly speeds up molecular docking tasks by up to a factor of 200%.
Are there any merits to head-mounted displays? Their postulated virtues were said to be: intuitive control of kinetic depth effect, intuitive navigation of 3D space, and the blanking out of disbelief cues. However, there was very limited proof of their real virtues, to date. The value of immersion has yet to be proven.
How could VR be made to work? The following diagram illustrates the developments required.
Scene complexity affected the frame rate. The lag is currently too high and needs to come down, more than increasing the frame rate. At 18-20 frames/sec, lag was around 1 frame time. For flight docking applications current end to end lags were 25 ms - 12 ms is needed. This requires new hardware and new algorithms.
To get better quality images we need better resolution, colour saturation, textures, lighting, anti-aliasing, see-through and registration, sound, and force. In short, radiosity and specularity at 30 frames/sec.
We need better tracking ranges (i.e. over 4 feet!), better ergonomics of equipment in terms of weight, moment of inertia, balance, cables, and nausea effects; better interaction devices, and better interaction modes.
We need to think about model engineering, model-building tools for 3D, inside space (though we don't know whether inside or outside the virtual space is better), and progressive truthfulness (i.e. increased resolution depending on the nature of task to be performed). We need model libraries, and we need to modc1 physics for motion, sound and force.
Our objective is a powerful mind-machine system that will perform intelligence amplification (i.e. in contrast to artificial intelligence), with close coupling between mind and machine in both directions. Development in VR should bring this tight coupling between human and machine.
(To be continued in the next issue)
