MEMIS-MHEG Environment for Multimedia Information and Simulation

MHEG represents a new multimedia and hypermedia standard proposed by ISO/IEC. This paper presents a new software authoring environment based around MHEG-5 that offers users a vehicle for creating multimedia applications that can interact with external programs which involve intense computational tasks. MEMIS provides a linkage between a multimedia front-end and externally available computational processes. The paper provides a background to the development of the environment, by identifying the facilities offered by MHEG, discusses the efficacy offered by MHEG vs JAVA for multimedia development; and then covers the development process and includes specific exemplars of the environment for managing multimedia applications which include (a) real-time signal processing embedded within a LabVIEW kernel, (b) automatic teller machines, (c) set top box, and (d) kiosks for Internet commerce that utilises MATLAB type calls. The results include system level architecture for multimedia implementation, and the timing requirements for such applications.