Synchromedia LabA Research Platform To Support Collaborative Work
Mohamed Kamel
Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Director of Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence Group
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Synchromedia Lab at UW
One of 5 nodes linking 5 research groups: UW PAMI, UQAM, ETS-UQ, Concordia PARMI,
and Tele Universite-UQAM)
It supported by CFI grant (M. Cheriet, ETS-UQ lead applicant) of $3.7 million.
UW Synchromedia lab is also supported by IOT and MEDT.
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Purpose
Provide collaborative information technology platform to support research on cooperative intelligent systems through collaborative environment
Enable researchers in Waterloo to develop innovative technologies in their specialized expertise of pattern recognition, cooperative systems and perception
Integrate and collaboratively work with leading researchers, in the other 4 groups, on character recognition, tele-operation, visualization and haptic interfaces.
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Synchromedia Nodes
GE: Gigabit Ethernet
RISQ
1 GE 1 GE 1 GE
Québec
ÉTS MTL
1 GE
1 GE MUX15327MUX
15327
1 OC-48WDM15808
1 GE1 GE
POPEd.-Montpetit
POPUQAM
MTL
POPUQACChicoutimi
POPCA*Net4
MTL
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Synchromedia Lead Members
Mohamed Cheriet (ETS), lead PIMohamed Kamel (Waterloo)Ching Suen (Concordia)Maarouf Saad (ETS)Gilles St-Amant (UQÀM)Louis Villardier (Teluq-Quebec)Hamadou Saliah (Teluq-Montreal)
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Applications
Collaborative work, Tele-education, Tele-instrumentation, Distributed data mining, Remote control for robotics, andDistributed research work
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Synchromedia Lab
The infrastructure includes: Multipurpose experimental lab, Multi-sensorial data acquisition, System of storage, processing and visualization of
the collected data, and Network infrastructure for the transport and the
control of a reliable data communication (QoS), P2P distributed objects technology.
Equipment includes: workstations, cameras, projection screen, smart board and communication bridge and switches
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Synchromedia Lab
Videoprojector
Smat Board
White Board
Projection screen (Principal)
Haptic Device
Intelligent cameraTracking presenter
camera for auditors
Private camera(participant)
(hand writing recognition)
Local screen(participant)
Presenter(participant)
Control & Management
system
Local Data and media(Local SyncroMedia room)
Distant Data and mediaFrom Network
(Distant SyncroMedia rooms)
Video source
Camera capture document
Videoconference
Sharing application from PC 1
Sharing application from PC 2
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Synchromedia Platform
session control
control of tools
participantsstats
tools stats
shared document
instructions and
comments
Audio- video tool
Chattool
E-Drivetool
White boardtool
Browsertool
Virtual Laboratory
tools work space
Real observation
Experimentation input and output
Participants list
PPT viewertool
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Synchromedia Architecture Interface
· User Interface
Collaborative Applications · Conference· Chat· Data sharing · Whiteboard· Virtual Laboratory· Audio/video
Middleware (Eterna)· Communication · Synchronization & consistence· Groupes & sessions
Network·Physical infrastructure ·Protocols·QoS
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Research Theme: Intellipresence
Intelligent cooperative systems, Systems for reading on-line and off-line
handwritten materials from various devices, Visualization interfaces and 3D interaction
(Haptic), Video coding and compression, Tele-laboratories and virtual labs, Evaluation of usage of collaborative tools, P2P distributed collaborative objects, and Networking (QoS, Reliability)
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Principal Industrial Partners
RISQ
CSC-UQ (Centre des Services Communs de l’UQ)
Quazal Inc.
HSCM (Hôpital Sacré-cœur de Montréal)
PanLab (Pan-European Laboratory / Programme Cadre Européen FP6-IST)
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Local Members (Waterloo)
Mohamed Kamel (Director), mkamel@pami
Shady Shehata, System support and Admin, shady@pami
Heidi Campbell, Admin assistant , hcampbel@pami
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Demos
Lab OverviewSharing ApplicationsSmart BoardVideo Conference
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Thanks