Overview

Introduction

Viz Multi Platform Suite (MPS) can be categorized into three main types of setup, the MPS Publish, MPS Broadcast and MPS Graphics On Demand (G.O.D.). MPS Publish enables you to create interactive components for your website based on the same technology as the braodcast graphics solutions from Vizrt. The elements created with Viz Artist can be published directly to a websites.

MPS Publish

MPS Publish consists of two components:

• Viz Artist
• Vizky Client

Scenes are created (or adapted) in Viz Artist in much the same way as broadcast graphic templates. Once published, using the powerful Vizky API, they can be turned into fully interactive and sophisticated website.

On the web server as MPS files, scenes can be viewed in web browsers, once the Vizky client plug-in is installed, as simply as you would install any ActiveX plug-in.

The Vizky client is a rich client with a built-in decoder and player embedded in a browser.

The Basic Workflow

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MPS Publish Architecture

Publishing broadcast graphics to the web has the following workflow:

• Creating a scene in Viz Artist 3
• Publishing the scene to an MPS file
• Using the Vizky API to create interactivity

To add live data from external data sources and feeds, turn to MPS Broadcast, which requires the MPS Server. This tool allows you to take interactivity to the next level, offering unique opportunities to generate revenue in novel ways.

For example, Personalization empowers you to differentiate the user experience based on the individual profiles of your users. This can be deployed for customized ads based on any demographic information in your data source. It can also allow for customized content based on demographics or geography.

G.O.D. (Graphics On Demand) converts data you have stored into custom visualizations using stellar 3D Viz graphics. This powerful feature can be deployed for scenarios such as the visualization of financial or other statistical data, or even customized greeting cards.

Taken together, for television broadcasters, entirely new viewing paradigms can be created, whereby the viewer watches an show, such as a sporting event or game show, and follows along with the laptop on the coffee table, either viewing more details or even participating in the event. Add customized advertising to the mix and you have the potential to harness an especially lucrative new revenue stream.

MPS Broadcast Architecture

With MPS Broadcast the MPS server solution becomes a crucial part of the setup. With MPS Broadcast the content creator can stay in direct contact with thousands of clients and push new updated content to the all logged on clients. This also opens up for personalized and localized content and advertisements.

MPS Server

The MPS Server is comprised of the following modules, which execute all functions of the graphic delivery solution.

• MPS Director: Overall server control center
• MPS Communicator: Handles client interactions
• MPS File Generator: Acts as a load controller and balancer of Viz Engines to generate scenes
• MPS Transfer Manager: An enhanced FTP server to support faster MPS file transfers
• Vizky: A local renderer on client machines

MPS Director

• User authentication and authorization
• Ability to generate personalized scenes according to Personalization user profiles
• System-wide licensing controller
• Seamless connection to Viz Trio, enabling a gateway to enhance broadcasting to the online world

MPS Communicator

• Receives commands from MPS Director and then allocates each command to relevant server components and clients.
• Manages connected clients
• Expandable by adding Communicator IP addresses and ports to MPS Director

MPS File Generator

• Manages, monitors and load-balances the Viz|Engine(s)
• Exports Viz Artist scenes to MPS format and uploads the files to MPS Transfer Manager
• Cache capability enables frequently-used scenes to be exported faster
• Web-based interface for monitoring and configuration
• Expandable by adding MPS File Generator IP addresses and ports to MPS Director

MPS Transfer Manager

• Implements Incremental Update to optimize bandwidth

Vizky

• Installed on end-user s devices
• 2D & 3D renderer including audio based on OpenGL and OpenAL technology
• Extendable video codec, enabling users to play standard supported formats and also download extra video codec plug-ins.
• Employs only one core engine per machine to share resources from all display windows
• Displays windows using ActiveX technology, controlling the plug-in via JavaScript
• Supports custom applications written for it in C, C++ and/or C#
• Supports Internet Explorer (plus any browsers using the IE engine) as well as Firefox and Safari
• Supports Incremental Update
• No license required

Basic Server Workflow

• Client logs into Director
• Registers to a channel; communication established.
• Take command goes to Director.
• Director goes to File Generator, to build the file.
• File Generator builds MPS file and uploads to Transfer Manager.
• Message to Communicator to let clients know that file is ready.
• MPS file is pushed from Transfer Manager to client.

Incremental update and Object Instancing

Incremental Update

Incremental update is the process and system by which the Vizky client downloads non-cached objects.

Without incremental update, the client downloads a full MPS file every time it needs a file to be displayed. With incremental update, the client initiates a request to download an MPS file to the Transfer Manager along with the data that contains what the client already has (called a hash list). With the given file name and the hash list, the Transfer Manager can strip an original file down to one that contains only the objects that are not in the client. The client then downloads only the objects needed.

Without incremental update, Vizky client will always request the full MPS file. With incremental update, Vizky client downloads a stripped-down version of an original file.

For example, consider the following case. Scene A contains a blue sphere and a green cube. Scene B contains a green cube and a red torus.

Assume that the green cube in Scene A and Scene B are identical.

Without Incremental Update

1. Vizky client downloads Scene A.
2. Vizky client downloads Scene B, even though the green cube has been downloaded already. This wastes both time and internet bandwidth.

With Incremental Update

1. Vizky client downloads Scene A and saves the content into its local cache. The local cache now contains the blue sphere and the green cube.
2. Vizky makes a download request along with the hash list to Transfer Manager.
3. The Transfer Manager strips down Scene B based on the hash list given. According to the hash list, the Transfer Manger knows that the client already has the green cube. It then modifies Scene B by removing the green cube.
4. Vizky downloads the stripped-down version of Scene B.

Object Instancing

Consider the following scene.

These six cubes are identical in term of their vertices topology. Even though their material and transformation are not the same, the Vizky client considers them as the same mesh object. The Vizky client stores them in its memory as one cube and uses different transformation and material to render them. This technique is called object instancing. By storing one cube instead of six identical cubes, this reduces memory usage. This technique also applies to other objects such as image, material, animation and channel, among others. The MPS file also uses this technique.

Both incremental update and object instancing help reduce memory usage, disk space and download time.

Important! When making scenes for Vizky, try to reuse existing objects as much as possible.