Computer conferencing system with real-time multipoint, multi-speed, multi-stream scalability

• US 6,343,313 B1
• Filed: 03/25/1997
• Issued: 01/29/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 03/26/1996
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Pixion Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Pixion Incorporated
• Inventors: Wells, Benjamin, Madams, Peter, Flower, John, Kaul, Clint, Salesky, Joseph, Janne, Edward Arthur Ho-Ming
• Primary Examiner(s): Rinehart, Mark H.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Vaughn, Jr., William C.
• Application Number:
  US08/823,744
• Time in Patent Office: 1,771 Days
• Field of Search: 709/204, 709/205, 709/207, 709/227, 709/228, 709/247, 709/242, 709/201, 709/202, 709/203, 709/206, 709/223, 709/224, 709/233, 709/232, 345/753, 345/751, 345/752, 345/764, 345/758, 345/505
• US Class Current: 709/204
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24 Querying
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04842 Selection of displayed objects or displayed text elements G06F3/0482 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1415 with means for detecting differences between the image stored in the host and the images displayed on the displays
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1813 for computer conferences, e.g. chat rooms instant messaging H04L51/04; protocols for multimedia communication H04L65/1101; arrangements for multi-party communication H04L65/403; telephonic conference arrangements H04M3/56; television conference systems H04N7/15
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1822 Conducting the conference, e.g. admission, detection, selection or grouping of participants, correlating users to one or more conference sessions, prioritising transmission
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1827 Network arrangements for conference optimisation or adaptation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1831 Tracking arrangements for later retrieval, e.g. recording contents, participants activities or behavior, network status
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1836 with heterogeneous network architecture
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/403 Arrangements for multi-party communication, e.g. for conferences data switching systems for conference H04L12/18; arrangements for connecting several subscribers to a common circuit, i.e. affording conference facilities H04M3/56; television conferencing systems H04N7/15
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/765 intermediate
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10 in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/60 Scheduling or organising the servicing of application requests, e.g. requests for application data transmissions using the analysis and optimisation of the required network resources admission control or resource allocation H04L47/70
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]

Abstract

An improved networked computer communications system handles arbitrary streams of data, and transports at varying speeds those streams where intermediate updates can be dropped if they are obsoleted by later arriving data updates, optimizing the utilization of network and node resources. Complex buffering by system server software allows distributed, parallel, or redundant processing, transmission, and storage for performance, reliability, and robustness. Various parameters of the system can be monitored, and the system can be reconfigured automatically based on the observations. Varied techniques reduce the perceived end-to-end latency and take advantage of software and hardware capabilities that assets connected to the system may possess. One conferencing system allows conference participants to share all or a portion of the display seen on their computer screens. The conferees may be at sites removed from each other, or may view a recorded presentation or archived conference at different times. Conference participants are either “presenters” who can modify the display or “attendees” who cannot modify the display. A pointer icon, which can be labeled to identify the conferee, is displayed on the shared image area. Each conferee can modify the position of his or her own pointer, even when not presenting, so that every participant can see what each conferee is pointing to, should a conferee choose to point to an element of the display. These and other features apply to other data streams shared in the conference or in meetings where there is no shared-image data stream.

Claims

1. A conferencing system comprising:

at least one client;

a conference server;

network connections between the conference server and the at least one client, wherein the at least one client maintains a version of a shared portion of a display, wherein the conference server updates said version of said shared portion of said display with data updates, after taking into consideration the network connections speeds and loads and client computing speeds and loads, wherein the conference server is capable of delivering the data updates in an output data type selected from base uncompressed data, base compressed data, differenced uncompressed data and differenced compressed data, and wherein the output data type is selected based on the network connections speeds and loads, conference server computing speeds and loads, and client computing speeds and loads, and wherein the conference server is capable of transmitting said shared portion of said display to two or more clients in parallel.

2. A conferencing system comprising:

at least one client;

a conference server;

network connections between the conference server and the at least one client, wherein the at least one client maintains a version of a shared portion of a data set, wherein the conference server updates said version of said shared portion of said data set with data updates after taking into consideration the network connections speeds and loads and client computing speeds and loads, wherein the conference server is capable of delivering the data updates in an output data type selected from base uncompressed data, base compressed data, differenced uncompressed data and differenced compressed data, and wherein the output data type is selected based on the network connections speeds and loads, conference server computing speeds and loads, and client computing speeds and loads, and wherein the conference server is capable of transmitting said shared portion of said data set to two or more clients in parallel.

3. A conferencing system according to claim 2, further comprising:

a presenter;

wherein the network connections connect the presenter to the conference server;

wherein the presenter provides the most current version of the shared portion of the data set;

wherein the version of the shared portion of the data set maintained by each client is periodically updated with data updates; and

wherein the data updates are created from the most current version of the shared portion of the data set provided by the presenter.

4. A conferencing system according to claim 3, wherein the data updates are delivered to each client by the conference server after the conference server evaluates the network connection speeds and loads and client computing speeds and loads.

5. A conferencing system according to claim 3, wherein each of the data updates is made up of at least one data block.

6. A conferencing system according to claim 5, wherein the at least one data block is capable of being represented as a checksum, a delta block or a base block.

7. A conferencing system according to claim 3, further comprising:

a plurality of transcoder for transforming the data updates between a first format and a second format.

8. A conferencing system according to claim 7, wherein the first format is a device-independent format and the second format is a device-dependent format.

9. A conferencing system according to claim 7, wherein a first transcoder is associated with the at least one client, a second transcoder is associated with the presenter, and a third transcoder is associated with the conference server;

and wherein which one of the first, second and third transcoder is activated depends on the network connection speeds and loads, client computing speeds and loads, conference server computing speeds and loads and presenter computing speeds and loads.

10. A conferencing system according to claim 3, further comprising:

a plurality of compression mechanisms for compressing the data updates;

wherein a first compression mechanism is associated with the conference server, and a second compression mechanism is associated with the presenter; and

wherein which one of the first and second compression mechanisms is activated depends on the network connection speeds and loads, client computing speeds and loads, conference server computing speeds and loads and presenter computing speeds and loads.

11. A conferencing system according to claim 10, further comprising:

a plurality of decompression mechanisms for decompressing compressed data updates;

wherein a first decompression mechanism is associated with the conference server, and a second decompression mechanism is associated with the at least one client; and

wherein which one of the first and second decompression mechanisms is activated depends on the network connection speeds and loads, client computing speeds and loads, and conference server computing speeds and loads, and presenter computing speeds and loads.

12. A conferencing system according to claim 3, wherein the data updates are forwarded from the presenter to the conference server after the presenter evaluates the presenter computing speeds and loads, the network connection speeds and loads, and conference server computing speeds and loads.