An example of an open distributed hypermedia system is the so-called "world-wide web" implemented on the Internet and discussed in papers such as the Berners-Lee reference given above.
解答例
The open distributed hypermedia system provided by the Internet allows users to easily access and retrieve different data objects located in remote geographic locations on the Internet.
However, this open distributed hypermedia system as it currently exists has shortcomings in that today's large data objects are limited largely by bandwidth constraints in the various communication links in the Internet and localized networks, and by the limited processing power, or computing constraints, of small computer systems normally provided to most users.
Large data objects are difficult to update at frame rates fast enough (e.g., 30 frames per second) to achieve smooth animation.
Moreover, the processing power needed to perform the calculations to animate such images in real time does not exist on most workstations, not to mention personal computers.
Today's browsers and viewers are not capable of performing the computation necessary to generate and render new views of these large data objects in real time.
For example, the Internet's open distributed hypermedia system allows users to view still images.
These images are simple non-interactive two-dimensional images, similar to photographs.
Much digital data available today exists in the form of high-resolution multi-dimensional image data (e.g., three dimensional images) which is viewed on a computer while allowing the user to perform real time viewing transformations on the data in order for the user to better understand the data.
An example of such type of data is in medical imaging where advanced scanning devices, such as Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and Computed Tomography (CT), are widely used in the fields of medicine, quality assurance and meteorology to present physicians, technicians and meteorologists with large amounts of data in an efficient way.
Because visualization of the data is the best way for a user to grasp the data's meaning, a variety of visualization techniques and real time computer graphics methods have been developed.
However, these systems are bandwidth-intensive and compute-intensive and often require multiprocessor arrays and other specialized graphics hardware to carry them out in real time.
Also, large amounts of secondary storage for data are required.
The expense of these requirements has limited the ability of researchers to readily exchange findings since these larger computers required to store, present and manipulate images are not available to many of the researchers that need to have access to the data.
On the other hand, small client computers in the form of personal computers or workstations such as client computer 108 of FIG. 2 are generally available to a much larger number of researchers.
Further, it is common for these smaller computers to be connected to the Internet.
Thus, it is desirable to have a system that allows the accessing, display and manipulation of large amounts of data, especially image data, over the Internet to a small, and relatively cheap, client computer.
Due to the relatively low bandwidth of the Internet (as compared to today's large data objects) and the relatively small amount of processing power available at client computers, many valuable tasks performed by computers cannot be performed by users at client computers on the Internet.
Also, while the present open distributed hypermedia system on the Internet allows users to locate and retrieve data objects it allows users very little, if any, interaction with these data objects.
Users are limited to traditional hypertext and hypermedia forms of selecting linked data objects for retrieval and launching viewers or other forms of external software to have the data objects presented in a comprehensible way.
Thus, it is desirable to have a system that allows a user at a small client computer connected to the Internet to locate, retrieve and manipulate data objects when the data objects are bandwidth-intensive and compute-intensive.
Further, it is desirable to allow a user to manipulate data objects in an interactive way to provide the user with a better understanding of information presented and to allow the user to accomplish a wider variety of tasks.
The present invention provides a method for running embedded program objects in a computer network environment.
The method includes the steps of providing at least one client workstation and one network server coupled to the network environment where the network environment is a distributed hypermedia environment; displaying, on the client workstation, a portion of a hypermedia document received over the network from the server, where the hypermedia document includes an embedded controllable application; and interactively controlling the embedded controllable application from the client workstation via communication sent over the distributed hypermedia environment.
The present invention allows a user at a client computer connected to a network to locate, retrieve and manipulate objects in an interactive way.
The invention not only allows the user to use a hypermedia format to locate and retrieve program objects, but also allows the user to interact with an application program located at a remote computer.
Interprocess communication between the hypermedia browser and the embedded application program is ongoing after the program object has been launched.
The user is able to use a vast amount of computing power beyond that which is contained in the user's client computer.
In one application, high resolution three dimensional images are processed in a distributed manner by several computers located remotely from the user's client computer.
This amounts to providing parallel distributed processing for tasks such as volume rendering or three dimensional image transformation and display.
