Modeling Multimedia-Objects with MME

Abstract

This paper describes our approach to modeling multimedia with an object-oriented class hierarchy. Our model is independent from specific application domains, hardware and media types. It abstracts from the physical data sources and sinks. The model is implemented basically as a toolkit, called MME (MultiMedia Extension), offering C++ classes to the programmer of multimedia applications and user interfaces. On top of this toolkit, some tools are realized to give non-programmers access to the features of the toolkit. There are media-dependent classes for modelling both media-data independent presentation (output) and interaction (input) aspects of multimedia objects. Furthermore, there are classes that define media data-independent relations and constraints between multimedia objects. Those relations can be spatial (layout definitions) and temporal (animation definitions). The media-independent classes use media- dependent classes (called Encodings) to access different data formats and Connection classes to access media data storage. Using these classes, a multimedia application or user interface can easily be defined by connecting media objects and application objects. The toolkit is designed to be portable.