Methods and apparatus for integrating external applications into an MPEG-4 scene

• US 9,473,770 B2
• Filed: 10/22/2013
• Issued: 10/18/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 07/08/1999
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: AT&T Corporation (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property II LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Cheok, Lai-tee, Puri, Atul, Schmidt, Robert
• Primary Examiner(s): Huynh, Thu
• Application Number:
  US14/059,880
• Publication Number:
  US 20140044196A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,092 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/40 of multimedia data, e.g. slideshows comprising image and additional audio data retrieval of still image data G06F16/50; retrieval of audio data G06F16/60; retrieval of video data G06F16/70
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/103 Formatting, i.e. changing of presentation of documents automatic justification G06F40/189; automatic line break hyphenation G06F40/191
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/134 Hyperlinking
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/85 using pre-processing or post-processing specially adapted for video compression
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/23412 for generating or manipulating the scene composition of objects, e.g. MPEG-4 objects
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44012 involving rendering scenes according to scene graphs, e.g. MPEG-4 scene graphs
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/47205 for manipulating displayed content, e.g. interacting with MPEG-4 objects, editing locally
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8586 by using a URL processing chained hypermedia data for information retrieval G06F16/94; information retrieval from the Internet by using URLs G06F16/955; URL in broadcast information H04H20/93; Web-based protocols H04L67/02

Abstract

A method of decoding, composing and rendering a scene. First information is obtained, the first information including a part of a MPEG-4 BIFS scene description stream and at least one coded MPEG-4 media stream. The first information is decoded by invoking a BIFS scene decoder and one or more specific media decoders that are required by the scene. Second information is obtained, the second information including a second part of a BIFS scene description stream that contains a reference to an external application. The second information is decoded by invoking the BIFS scene decoder and an external application decoder. An integrated scene is composed, the integrated scene including one or more decoded MPEG-4 media objects and one or more external application objects specified in the decoded scene descriptions streams. The composed integrated scene is rendered on a display.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

decoding, via a binary format scene decoder, a part of a binary format scene description stream that references a non-MPEG external application object and a pointer to a set of non-MPEG computer-executable instructions associated with the non-MPEG external application object to yield decoded data, wherein the non-MPEG external application object is configured to control and render a windowed region within a coded scene according to the set of non-MPEG computer-executable instructions; and

composing, based on the decoded data, an integrated scene comprising the non-MPEG external application object.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising decoding first information from the binary format scene description stream using the binary format scene decoder and a specific application decoder associated with a scene description.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising decoding second information comprising the part of the binary format scene description stream using the binary format scene decoder and an external application decoder.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the binary format scene description stream conforms to an industry standard.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the industry standard is MPEG-4.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the pointer to the set of non-MPEG computer-executable instructions software associated with the non-MPEG external application object further comprises a coded representation of a universal resource locator.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the non-MPEG external application object is associated with an external application.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the set of non-MPEG computer-executable instructions reside on a server communicating over a network with a web browser.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein the external application is a web browser.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising displaying a prompt in the integrated scene based on description information.

11. The method of claim 7, further comprising receiving a start time and a stop time associated with the external application.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

starting an external application decoder at the start time; and

stopping the external application decoder at the stop time.

13. The method of claim 7, wherein a reference to the external application further comprises information corresponding to an ApplicationWindow node.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the information corresponding to the ApplicationWindow node further identifies a location for an application window within the integrated scene and identifies dimensions of the application window.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the information corresponding to the ApplicationWindow node further comprises a start time and a stop time.

16. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

re-composing a new integrated scene by integrating a sub-scene specified by the part of the binary format scene description stream into the integrated scene; and

rendering the new integrated scene.

17. The method of claim 16, further comprising:

starting the non-MPEG external application object at the start time; and

stopping the non-MPEG external application object at the stop time.

18. A system comprising:

a processor; and

a computer-readable storage medium having instructions stored which, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to perform operations comprising;

decoding, via a binary format scene decoder, a part of a binary format scene description stream that references a non-MPEG external application object and a pointer to a set of non-MPEG computer-executable instructions associated with the non-MPEG external application object to yield decoded data, wherein the non-MPEG external application object is configured to control and render a windowed region within a coded scene according to the set of non-MPEG computer-executable instructions; and

composing, based on the decoded data, an integrated scene comprising the non-MPEG external application object.

19. The system of claim 18, the computer-readable storage medium having additional instructions stored which result in the operations further comprising decoding first information from the binary format scene description stream using the binary format scene decoder and a specific application decoder associated with a scene description.

20. A non-transitory computer-readable storage device having instructions stored which, when executed by a computing device, cause the computing device to perform operations comprising:

decoding, via a binary format scene decoder, a part of a binary format scene description stream that references a non-MPEG external application object and a pointer to a set of non-MPEG computer-executable instructions associated with the non-MPEG external application object to yield decoded data, wherein the non-MPEG external application object is configured to control and render a windowed region within a coded scene according to the set of non-MPEG computer-executable instructions; and

composing, based on the decoded data, an integrated scene comprising the non-MPEG external application object.