Collaborative multimedia scientific design in SHASTRA

Abstract We address the issue of design ofarchitectures and abstractions to implement multimediascientificmanipulationsystems, propose a model for the integra~ion ofsoftware tools into a multi-userdistributedand collaborative environment on the multimedia desktop, and briefly describe a prototype CSCWinfrastructure which we have used to implement a scientific manipulation environment. Finally, wepresent example design systems to exhibit that multimedia interfaces, incorporating text, graphics,audio and video, greatly facilitate distributed and collaborative scientific design effort.SHASTRA 1 is a distributed and collaborative geometric design and scientific manipulation envi­ronment. In this system we address the research and development of the next generation ofscientificsoftware environments where multiple users (say, a collaborative engineering design team) create, share,manipulate, analyze, simulate, and visualize complex three dimensional geometric designs over a dis­tributed heterogeneous network of workstations and supercomputers. SHASTRA consists ofa growingset ofinteroperable tools for geometric design andscientific analysis, networked into a highly extensibleenvironment. Itprovides a unified framework for collaboration, session management, multimedia com­munication, and datasharing, along with a powerful numeric, symbolic and graphics substrate, enablingthe rapid prototyping and development of efficient software tools for the creation, manipulation andvisualization ofmulti-dimensionalscientific data.The design ofSHASTRA is the embodiment of a simple idea - scientific manipulation toolkits canabstractly be thought ofas objects that provide specific functionality. At the system level, SHASTRAspecifies architectural guidelines and provides communication facilities that let toolkits cooperate toutilize the functionality they offer. At the application level, it provides collaboration and multimediafacilities that let users cooperate. A marriage of the two lets us design sophisticated problem solvingenvironments.