Excerpts

A course in multimedia is rapidly becoming a necessity in computer science and engineering curricula, especially now that multimedia touches most aspects of these fields. Multimedia was originally seen as a vertical application area; that is, a niche application with methods that belong only to itself. However, like pervasive computing, multimedia is now essentially a horizontal application area and forms an important component of the study of computer graphics, image processing, databases, real-time systems, operating systems, information retrieval, computer networks, computer vision, and so on. Multimedia is no longer just a toy but forms part of the technological environment in which we work and think. This book fills the need for a university-level text that examines a good deal of the core agenda computer science sees as belonging to this subject area. Multimedia has become associated with a certain set of issues in computer science and engineering, and we address those here. The book is not an introduction to simple design issues--it serves a more advanced audience than that. On the other hand, it is not a reference work--it is more a traditional textbook. While we perforce discuss multimedia tools, we would like to give a sense of the underlying principles in the tasks those tools carry out. Students who undertake and succeed in a course based on this text can be said to really understand fundamental matters in regard to this material; hence the title of the text. In conjunction with this text, a full-fledged course should also allow students to make use of this knowledge to carry out interesting or even wonderful practical projects in multimedia, interactive projects that engage and sometimes amuse and, perhaps, even teach these same concepts. Who Should Read This Book? This text aims at introducing the basic ideas in multimedia to an audience comfortable with technical applications--that is, computer science and engineering students. It aims to cover an upper-level undergraduate multimedia course but could also be used in more advanced courses and would be a good reference for anyone, including those in industry, interested in current multimedia technologies. Graduate students needing a solid grounding in materials they may not have seen before would undoubtedly benefit from reading it. The text mainly presents concepts, not applications. A multimedia course, on the other hand, teaches these concepts and tests them but also allows students to use coding and presentation skills they already know to address problems in multimedia. The accompanying web site shows some of the code for multimedia applications, along with some of the better projects students have developed in such a course and other useful materials best presented electronically. The ideas in the text drive the results shown in student projects. We assume the reader knows how to program and is also completely comfortable learning yet another tool. Instead of concentrating on tools, however, we emphasize, what students do not already know. Using the methods and ideas collected here, students are also able to learn more themselves, sometimes in a job setting. It is not unusual for students who take the type of multimedia course this text aims at to go on to jobs in a multimedia-related industry immediately after their senior year, and sometimes before. The selection of material in the text addresses real issues these learners will face as soon as they show up in the workplace. Some topics are simple but new to the students; some are more complex but unavoidable in this emerging area. Have the Authors Used This Material in a Real Class? Since 1996, we have taught a third-year undergraduate course in multimedia systems based on the introductory materials set out in this book. A one-semester course could very likely not include all the material covered in this text, but we have usually managed to consider a good many of the topics addressed and to mention a select number of issues in Part III within that time frame. Over the same time period as an introduction to more advanced materials, we have also taught a one-semester graduate-level course using notes covering topics similar to the ground covered by this text. A fourth-year or graduate course would do well to consider material from Parts I and II of the book and then some material from Part III, perhaps in conjunction with some of the original research references included here and results presented at topical conferences. We have attempted to fill both needs, concentrating on an undergraduate audience but including more advanced material as well. Sections that can safely be omitted on a first reading are marked with an asterisk. What is Covered in This Text? In Part I, Multimedia Authoring and Data Representations, we introduce some of the notions included in the term multimedia and look at its history as well as its present. Practically speaking, we carry out multimedia projects using software tools, so in addition to an overview of these tools, we get down to some of the nuts and bolts of multimedia authoring. Representing data is critical in multimedia, and we look at the most important data representations for multimedia applications, examining image data, video data, and audio data in detail. Since color is vitally important in multimedia programs, we see how this important area impacts multimedia issues. In Part II, Multimedia Data Compression, we consider how we can make all this data fly onto the screen and speakers. Data compression turns out to be an important enabling technology that makes modern multimedia systems possible, so we look at lossless and lossy compression methods. For the latter category, JPEG still-image compression standards, including JPEG2000, are arguably the most important, so we consider these in detail. But since a picture is worth a thousand words and video is worth more than a million words per minute, we examine the ideas behind MPEG standards MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, MPEG-7, and beyond. Separately, we consider some basic audio compression techniques and take a look at MPEG Audio, including MP3. In Part III, Multimedia Communication and Retrieval, we consider the great demands multimedia places on networks and systems. We go on to consider network technologies and protocols that make interactive multimedia possible. Some of the applications discussed include multimedia on demand, multimedia over IP, multimedia over ATM, and multimedia over wireless networks. Content-based retrieval is a particularly important issue in digital libraries and interactive multimedia, so we examine ideas and systems for this application in some detail. Textbook Web Site The book's web site is www.cs.sfu.ca/mmbook . There, you will find copies of figures from the book, an errata sheet updated regularly, programs that help demonstrate concepts in the text, and a dynamic set of links for the Further Exploration section of each chapter. Since these links are regularly updated (and of course URLs change often) they are mostly online rather than in the text. Instructors' Resources The main text web site has no ID and password, but access to sample student projects is at the instructor's discretion and is password-protected. Prentice Hall also hosts a web site containing Course Instructor resources for adopters of the text. These include an extensive collection of online course notes, a one-semester course syllabus and calendar of events, solutions for the exercises in the text, sample assignments and solutions, sample exams, and extra exam questions. Excerpted from Fundamentals of Multimedia by Mark S. Drew, Ze-Nian Li All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.