1. Unit 7 Chapter 22
Multimedia Basics

2. Chapter Outline Lesson 22.1 Lesson 22.2 Lesson 22.3
Exploring Multimedia
Lesson 22.2
Developing Online Multimedia
Lesson 22.3
Exploring Virtual Reality

3. Multimedia Development Tools
Exploring Multimedia
Forms of Multimedia
Multimedia
Information Kiosks
Games
Multimedia Development Tools
Pen-Based Graphics Tablets
Microphones
Digital Cameras

4. Exploring Multimedia Forms of Multimedia
Multimedia combines text, graphics, video, animation, and sound. Television programs and movies are one-way multimedia you are a passive viewer. Interactive multimedia lets you interact with the computer-generated content.
Both CDs and DVDs offer a rich opportunity for multimedia experiences. Watching a movie on DVD is no longer a passive activity because you can choose whether to view the film in letterbox or standard television format.

5. Exploring Multimedia Forms of Multimedia
You decide what language to hear it in. You can skip to or replay your favorite parts. Many DVD movies include interactive features such as games.
CDs and DVDs also offer educational experiences and adventures. A multimedia encyclopedia offers videos and animations that bring subjects to life. A mountain-climbing DVD lets you choose your view of the mountain and your route to the top. A DVD used with a stationary bike and your computer can give you 18 different “rides” and check your speed and heart rate while you pedal.

6. Exploring Multimedia Information Kiosks
An information kiosk uses an automated system to provide information or training. In effect, this is a PC-in-a-box, usually with a touch screen allowing input. At the Museum of Science in Boston, Massachusetts, for example, you can create artificial fish and watch how they behave when you release them into a simulated fish tank.

7. Exploring Multimedia Games
Computer games, home video game consoles, and arcade games offer dramatic examples of multimedia. They can simulate flying in an airplane, escaping from a dungeon, exploring outer space, or running a business.

8. Multimedia Development Tools
Pen-Based Graphics Tablets
When creating still or animated graphics for use in a multimedia program, many artists find it easier to draw and sketch using a pen-based graphics tablet rather than a mouse. To use the tablet, you move a stylus, or electronic pen, across a sensitive touchpad, and your movements are recorded by your graphics software. The images can then be saved and edited.

9. Multimedia Development Tools
Pen-Based Graphics Tablets
A tablet PC combines the features of a graphics tablet with the functions of a personal computer. Users can create graphics as on a graphic tablet, but they can also use the tablet PC as if it were a regular laptop computer.

10. Multimedia Development Tools
Microphones
Audio can be recorded into a conventional recording device and then imported through a sound card. Audio can also be recorded directly into the computer using a microphone. Most sound cards have a special plug for a microphone. Using the software that comes with the sound card, you can assign a file name, click “record,” and start speaking into the microphone. The sounds will be recorded to a new audio check.

11. Multimedia Development Tools
Digital Cameras
Digital cameras and camcorders are an easy way to acquire images and video for use in multimedia. These cameras don’t require film. Images and video are stored in the camera and can then be transferred to the computer through a special cable or disk. Once on the computer, the pictures and video can be edited and used in presentations, movies, Web sites, and other applications.

12. Developing Online Multimedia
Accessing Online Multimedia
Net Radio
Net Video
Ripping
Creating Multimedia
Using Authoring Tools
Choosing Authoring Tools

13. Developing Multimedia Tools
Accessing Online Multimedia
Multimedia presentations aren’t limited to files stored on your computer’s disks. With an Internet connection, you have access to an unlimited number of multimedia experiences. Many multimedia Web sites can stream video and audio data—that is, transmit it across a network without interruption. You don’t have to wait until the entire file is downloaded to your computer for it to play. The file begins playing as soon as it starts to download from the Web site to your PC.

14. Developing Online Multimedia
Accessing Online Multimedia – Net Radio
Internet radio is a method for listening to music, talk, and information over the Internet. Net radio doesn’t actually use radio waves. Instead, audio programs are converted to digital format and streamed across the Internet. Streaming radio places a temporary audio file on your hard drive. This is what is heard—not the actual stream. The audio stream replenishes the file on the hand drive, continually updating the data as it plays.

15. Developing Online Multimedia
Accessing Online Multimedia – Net Video
Like Net radio, Net video uses streaming, but it delivers pictures as well as sound. News sites use online video to deliver the latest news. Movie sites preview upcoming releases and offer short films and animations. In the business world, Net video is used for videoconferencing. In a videoconference, small cameras are used to allow people in different places to see and hear one another.

16. Developing Multimedia Tools
Accessing Online Multimedia - Ripping
If your computer has a CR-ROM drive, you can also copy music for your personal use from audio CDs onto your hard drive. This process is called ripping, and it requires special software. Once audio is ripped to the hard drive, it can be converted to MP3 format, which creates a much smaller file than a regular audio file.

17. Developing Online Multimedia
Creating Multimedia – Using Authoring Tools
Authoring tools let you choose which sounds, video clips, animations, text, and graphics will appear. You also control timing, transition effects, and volume. Authoring tools let you respond to questions such as the following:
How long will an image appear on-screen?
How will one clip fade into the next?
How loud should a sound clip be?
Most authoring tools save data in a format for use by the software developers and authorized users. You use a media player program to view the finished piece.

18. Developing Online Multimedia
Creating Multimedia – Choosing Authoring Tools
The authoring tool you choose depends on how complex your project will be, the type of computer system you have, and how much time you have to spend learning the program. Some sophisticated authoring tools are for media professionals; others are simple enough that they can be used by anyone who wants to create their own multimedia CDs, videos, and presentations.

19. Developing Multimedia Tools
Creating Multimedia – Choosing Authoring Tools
The professional version of QuickTime and some high- end desktop publishing programs include a small set of multimedia authoring tools. Adobe offers several popular products, like Director, Director/student Edition, and Studio MX. Presentation programs such as Microsoft PowerPoint includes tools for inserting audio and video and for animating slides. Many PCs come with software such as Muvee Reveal by Muvee Technologies for creating movies that include video, images, and sound.

20. Exploring Virtual Reality
The Technology of Virtual Reality
VR Gadgets
VR Language
Practical Applications of Virtual Reality
Easing Pain
Overcoming Fear

21. Exploring Virtual Reality
The Technology of Virtual Reality
Virtual reality works by making a computer-generated scene feel as it would in the real world. It does this by using three dimensional, or 3-D, graphics, color, texture, and sound.
In some cases, VR worlds are displayed on regular computer screens. A 3-D video game is one example. Another example is a flight simulator, which is valuable in training pilots.
Virtual reality’s main potential, however, lies in immersive technologies that surround a viewer with the VR world. With immersive VR, the user feels part of the virtual environment. For example, gaming consoles such as Microsoft’s Kinnect for Xbox let the player use his or her body as the controller; some museum exhibits project moving images on walls around the viewer; and arcade games let you steer a race car or ski down a mountain.

22. Exploring Virtual Reality
The Technology of Virtual Reality – VR Gadgets
In addition to a head mounted display, virtual reality often uses a device called a data glove. A data glove is a basic glove equipped with sensors that measure movements of the hand and fingers. One use of the data glove is to operate equipment from a distance.
The Technology of Virtual Reality – VR Language
To create virtual worlds on the Internet, programmers use a language called X3D. X3D allows programmers to describe objects that appear in the virtual world, such as shapes, buildings, landscapes, or characters.

23. Exploring Virtual Reality
Practical Applications of Virtual Reality
Virtual reality has become very useful for simulations. Simulations are virtual reality programs that mimic a specific place, job, or function. Virtual reality is used in many design and architectural businesses. It is also used in the military to train fighter pilots and combat soldiers without the risks of live training.
In medicine, virtual reality is used to simulate complex surgery for training surgeons without using actual patients.

24. Exploring Virtual Reality
Practical Applications of Virtual Reality – Easing Pain
At the University of Washington’s Harborview Burn Center, virtual reality is being used to help severe burn victims deal with their pain. Patients are immersed in a virtual reality environment. There, they imagine that they are flying through icy canyons and cold waterfalls, building snowmen, and throwing snowballs. By focusing on things that are pleasant and cold, patients can focus less on their pain.

25. Exploring Virtual Reality
Practical Applications of Virtual Reality – Overcoming Fear
A study by Walter Reed Army Hospital and Emory University School of Medicine showed that patients placed in virtual reality flight simulators overcame their fear of flying as successfully as patients treated using other techniques. But the VR method offers additional benefits: It is cheaper and easier than taking the patients on real airplane flights.

26. Exploring Virtual Reality
Practical Applications of Virtual Reality – Saving Lives
Heart surgeons often need to replace portions of a heart and its valves with artificial pieces. Designing replacement valves is very tricky because even minor flaws can cause major problems.
Scientists at the University of Sheffield in England have developed a way to use virtual reality to test new heart valves before they are manufactured, using a computer to simulate how blood will flow through them. This software lets doctors predict whether or not the valve will work properly after it is in the body.

27. Exploring Virtual Reality
Practical Applications of Virtual Reality – Saving Lives
Virtual reality is also used to train doctors to perform surgery. Software can simulate open heart surgery; for instance, allowing doctors to practice without the risk of harming a patient. Someday, doctors using virtual reality interfaces may be able to operate on actual patients halfway around the world.