Automatic Presentation of Multimedia Documents Using Relational Grammars

This paper describes an approach to the automatic presentation of multimedia documents based on parsing and syntax-directed translation using Relational Grammars. This translation is followed by a constraint solving mechanism to create the final layout. Grammatical rules provide the mechanism for mapping from a representation of the content of a presentation to forms that specify the media objects to be realized. These realization forms include sets of spatial and temporal constraints between elements of the presentation. Individual grammars encapsulate the "look and feel" of a presentation and can be used as generators of that style. By making the grammars sensitive to the requirements of the output medium, parsing can introduce flexibility into the information realization process. Keywords: Automatic design, grammar-directed design, visual languages, relational grammars, parsing, constraints 2: Introduction A fully functioning multimedia system requires a wide range of stages to achi..