This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Next Generation of Portals
In this application scenario, the client terminal is a multimedia terminal connected to the Internet. An example of such a terminal is a personal computer (PC) with multimedia features. The MPEG-4–based application can be received over the network from a remote server. The application can also be locally resident on a CD-ROM or on a DVD-ROM. The MPEG-4 browser can be configured as a plug-in for a standard Web browser.
After having collected information about a product of interest, the user may decide to receive more information about it through a direct communication with a vendor. He may then enter the vendor's 3D virtual shop as depicted in Figure 1–7, navigate in it, further examine products modeled in 3D, and finally, by triggering a button, start a real-time communication with the vendor. MPEG-4 Systems provides the tools for such integration of content with the notions of mixed 2D/3D scenes. Real-time presentations of streamed content, like a 2D-segmented video from the vendor, can easily be included in the scene through updates of the scene description and the object descriptors.
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FIGURE 1-7 The next generation of portals. (Courtesy of Andreas Graffunder, T-Nova, European project IST Son G. Used by permission.)