Visual tools for a multimedia IC development environment (MICE)

A visual software engineering environment referred to as the Multimedia IC Development Environment (MICE) is described. MICE is to be used as the basis for the study of the visual design process applied to the development of TAO-based multimedia applications. The unifying model used in this approach is barred on Teleaction Objects (TAOs). TAOs are multimedia objects with attached knowledge structured as an active index. TAOs can be described using the TAOML extension of HTML. This allows for easy prototyping of distributed multimedia applications using a web browser as the user interface. The TAOML Builder tool allows the user to visually specify a TAO. The hypergraph is parsed for correctness using an underlying Boundary Symbol Relation grammar and the correct TAOML is output. TAOML can be translated into standard HTML using the TAOML Interpretor. The ICs for the application can be visually specified using the IC Builder. The IC Compiler produces the IC Manager which provides the run-time environment for the ICs.