Real-time browser for the Digital Museum available with low-cost terminals and low-bandwidth networks

Abstract

Describes a real-time browser for the Digital Museum. It acts as a user interface to the multi-user virtual interaction environment that the Digital Museum provides as a browsing space of materials in the museum with multimedia data. The Digital Museum is available with low-cost terminals and through low-bandwidth networks such as telephone circuits. However, these factors influence the real-time display of the view, which is a fundamental function in the browser. This function provides a view of the user player (the agent of the user in the virtual environment) in real time, and enables the user to act in the virtual environment. Our browser divides the available drawing power and network bandwidth between objects, giving higher priority to those objects that are important for the view. As a result, our browser can provide a proper view to the user in real time, even with low-cost terminals and low-bandwidth networks.