View-rules and representations: a framework for dynamic control of multimedia in virtual environments

Folding multimedia capabilities into virtual environments is a key driver of future applications. However, providing flexible and, user-customizable solutions is problematic. We describe a framework, called AlphaOmega that enables designer/user definition and control of the representational aspects of objects used in applications. Powerful changes in an application's interface and behavior can be achieved by such means. We show the relevance of this work to multimedia by giving concrete examples using a distance learning virtual environment called PERSYST.