Multimedia Document Engineering in MCF

Peter King, Jocelyne Nanard, Marc Nanard

Document Engineering 2002 , McLean, VA, November 8-9, 2002

ABSTRACT

This article demonstrates how several of the general-purpose principles which have proved successful in the area of large-scale software development and maintenance are relevant to multimedia design. We present the Media Construction Formalism, MCF, whose high level concepts encompass the principles of abstraction, modularity, encapsulation, and reuse, which facilitate formal specification during the initial steps of multimedia document engineering. MCF has been implemented as a user-friendly design environment, which includes a special-purpose structured editor which provides a visual representation of partial designs. The MCF system promotes the capture of constructs which may emerge during a design, and which can be manipulated by the multimedia designer and executed by the machine at different levels of granularity and detail. MCF uses the metaphor of roles, players and actors to provide generic design descriptions of multimedia scenarios, and encompasses a powerful temporal and reactive model.

Keywords

Multimedia, design, engineering, abstraction, modularity encapsulation, reuse, scenario, role.

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