Wide Area Multimedia Networks
Computing Japan talks with Dr. Hiroaki Ikeda of Chiba University
by Steven Myers Chiba University is a top-tier school known for its strength in computer and electrical engineering, and it is there that Dr. Hiroaki Ikeda heads an exciting and active laboratory that specializes in research related to wide-area multimedia networks and their use in large systems (such as those for wide-area educational networks and interactive news services). Dr. Ikeda is a well-known figure in the Japanese computer science and engineering community, having served not only on the Japanese National Committee but also on numerous ISO and IEC committees for standardization of graphical symbols and technical documentation.
Our visit to the lab
Chiba University is located in Inage-ku, about 90 minutes by train from Tokyo's Akihabara. The campus itself is huge, with a large proportion of the space devoted to the various engineering departments. After an initial meeting in which Dr. Ikeda discussed in detail both past and present activities and research projects, we returned to the lab for demonstrations.About ten students from the lab had gathered. We were given a presentation by the lead for the Enhanced Illustrated Audio project regarding the design and implementation of his system, while other students showed us work related to the Mbone network and various Web-related projects (including a CGI forms interface to the huge database maintained by the university library). The students (some of whom were undergraduates) were quite enthusiastic about presenting their work. It is not often in visiting university labs that we are given a chance to interact directly with students in this manner, and we came away quite impressed by their work.
Equally impressive is the manner in which Dr. Ikeda has coordinated the work of individual students and groups to form larger multimedia network-related projects, actively seeking ways to combine these projects with those of other organizations in still larger, more ambitious efforts. This article describes just three of the large-scale collaborative experiments in progress at Dr. Ikeda's lab.
Multimedia
Educational Network
In collaboration with several other universities, corporations, and government
organizations, some members of the lab are involved in the development of
an experimental "on-line university" that will allow students
to receive VOD (video on demand) instruction over an ATM (asynchronous transfer
mode) network. The aims of this large-scale experiment are to investigate
the technical issues involved in creating and maintaining such a service,
to develop appropriate teaching materials for the courses to be offered,
and to gain a better understanding of the HCI (human-computer interaction)
factors that come into play when using wide-area educational information
systems. Many of Japan's most prestigious and influential institutions have joined in the effort, including the Communications Research Laboratory of the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, and the University of Tokyo.
The network contains four major subsystems: a videoconferencing system, an images and sound database, an experimental satellite communications system, and the educational media system. Experiments using the network will be conducted from May through September 1996 and from November 1996 though February 1997.
TV News on Demand
The TV News on Demand project is a collaboration with Chiba Broadcasting. The intent is to develop a system that will automatically send compressed digital video files from news broadcasts to the Ikeda lab server, where they will be made available for public access through the World Wide Web. The files will be sent at regular time intervals, and stored until disk space constraints force their removal to make room for new files (a period currently estimated at one month).The purpose of this experiment is to examine the effects that offering an interactive news service (with its bandwidth-hogging potential) will have on both the server and on normal network operations, and to develop methods of improving video and sound integration for presentation over a WAN (wide-area network).
Enhanced Illustrated Audio
EIA (Enhanced Illustrated Audio) is an interactive application that allows the user to integrate and manipulate different types of media (such as .gif and EUC-encoded Japanese text, for example) using the Tk GUI (graphical user interface). The development team has spread functionality over multiple Tcl/Tk applications that communicate efficiently among themselves to reduce delay in coordinating between the different media types.The application thus aids considerably in the development and display of interactive multimedia presentations in the Tk environment. Ikeda envisions EIA as being a central interface component of the multimedia educational network for lessons that do not require video.
Contact Information
Hiroaki Ikeda
Computer Engineering, Electronic Systems Division
Dept. of Electric and Electronics Engineering
Faculty of Engineering, Chiba University
1-33 Yayoi, Inage
Chiba 263, Japan
Phone +81-43-290-3352
Fax +81 43-290-3039
e-mail: ikeda@hike.te.chiba-u.ac.jp