The Modeling of Structured Context-Aware Interactive Environments

Using multimedia video objects in building rich, interactive and distributed environments is complex. We want to provide ways in which the user can interact freely with those objects. As a result, the quality of the applications is not only ruled by the presentation machine and its neighborhood but by the traffic conditions and the status of the server as well. As a good practice of design, modeling is essential, as well as the observation of standards. This paper presents a proposal for modeling Structured Context-Aware Interactive Environments, as an approach for covering the user-network-application interactions that occur in an interactive environment. In this scenario, the work discusses mainly which type of contextual information (both at the terminal and the network) could be used in an interactive environment and how it should be manipulated. The concept of program profile is also presented and methods for using profiles in interactive video are discussed. Interactive Television (ITV) programs are presented as an example of application that can use our modeling.

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