This book equips readers with the skills to design multimedia delivery systems. It provides an overview of current research in the area, giving readers a glimpse of what multimedia computers will be doing in the near future. Divided into 2 parts, it discusses how multimedia delivery systems are designed and constructed, and then covers the methods of realizing true multimedia computing. With its authoritative outlook and supplementary material available on authors website, this book will interest all those working in multimedia.

Inhalt

1 Introduction.- What are Multimedia Systems?.- Multimedia Delivery Systems.- Multimedia Interactivity.- What Topics does the Book Cover?.- I.- 2 Perception and Data Coding.- Perception of Multimedia Data.- perception of Sound.- Perception of Static Image Data.- Perception of Moving Image Data.- Capture of Multimedia Data.- Capturing Sound.- Capturing Static Image Data.- Capturing Video Data.- Coding Multimedia Data.- Coding Sound.- Coding Still Images.- Coding Video Data.- Coding/Decoding Hardware.- Conclusion.- 3 Organising and Delivering Multimedia Objects.- A Classification of Multimedia Presentations.- What is Required of a Multimedia Presentation Design Tool?.- Characteristics of Practical Design Tools.- Implementing Multimedia Presentations Using HTML.- Good Design Pratice.- Manipulating Multimedia Content.- Conclusion.- 4 Hardware to Support Multimedia Systems.- The Multimedia PC.- Peripheral Devices.- Kiosk Systems.- Conclusions.- II.- 5 Multimedia Interactivity.- The Future of Multimedia Communication Systems.- Theoretical Foundations.- Conclusion.- 6 Speech Generation.- Physiology.- Historical Speech Generating Machines.- Synthesis from Stored Segments.- Synthesis from Rules.- Summary.- 7 Speech Recognition.- Principles Underlying Speech Recognition.- Architecture of a Speech Recognition System.- Representation.- Classification.- Recognition.- Summary.- 8 Head Pointing Devices.- What is a Head Pointing Device?.- Where Would Head Pointing Device Be Used?.- The Video Based Head Pointing Device: Hardware.- Possible Software Solutions.- Conclusions.- 9 Gesture Recognition.- Example Systems.- Requirements.- Identifying and Describing Hands and Fingers in Video Sequences.- Tracking Hands and Fingers in Video Sequences.- Representing Gestures.- Recognising Gestures.- Summary and Conclusions.- 10 Motion Following and Interpretation.- Activity Understanding Systems.- Information Delivery Systems.- Video Surveillance and Monitoring.- Conclusion.- 11 Synthesising a Visual Response.- Feedback.- An Overview of Methods of Generating and Animating.- Head Models.- Facial Animation Systems.- Conclusions.- Conclusions.- The Current State of Multimedia Systems.- What of the Future?.- Appendices.- HTML - Hypertext Markup Language.- Mathematical Techniques.- Publicly Available Software.