Subject: Response of SC24 to ISO/IEC JTC 1 N 4631

From: Steve Carson <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 May 1997 11:14:37 -0600

Thanks to several NBs who provided me with comments on the first draft. I
have made several slight revisions and now propose that the following text
be sent to JTC1 as SC24's response to N4631. We will have additional time
in Kista to discuss SC24's future further and we can make additional
comments to JTC1 at that time.

SC responses are due to the JTC 1 Secretariat no later than this Wednesday,
15 May 1997. If anyone has any problems with this text, please let BOTH
myself and Jean Stride know by tomorrow (Tuesday 14 May) by 4PM London time.
- - -
Response of SC24 to ISO/IEC JTC 1 N 4631

ISO/IEC JTC1/SC24 N 

The response of SC24 is organized as answers to the questions posed in JTC1
N4631.

1.  Do you consider that your present projects (or project groupings) align
with the proposed recommendation? If not please provide rationale for a
different alignment within the overall set of technical directions.

No, almost none of the present activities of SC24 fit solely within with
any one of the proposed Technical Directions. To explain this, it is
necessary to carefully explore the proposed scopes of some of the new
Technical Directions against the approved scope of SC24. First consider
three of the proposed Technical Directions that have some relationship to
the present scope of SC24:

Multimedia & Representation: Coding of hypermedia and multimedia and coded
representation of picture, audio and character information, including
- sets of compression and control functions for use with such information,
- interchange of such information.

Programming Languages and Software Interfaces: Programming languages, their
environments and systems software interfaces, including:
- specification techniques,
- common facilities, and
- language bindings.

User Interfaces: User-system interfaces for input devices such as
keyboards, mice, pointers and pens; rules for systems control by voice
recognition, presentation techniques, dialogues, graphic symbols and icons
including those for people with special needs.

In contrast, the present scope of SC24 is:

Area of Work: Standardization of interfaces, in windowed and non-windowed
environments, for:
·	computer graphics
·	image processing
·	interaction with, and visual presentation of, information

Included are the following related areas:

Related reference models; application specifications; functional
specification; interchange formats; device interfaces; testing methods,
registration procedures; presentation and support for creation of
multimedia and hypermedia documents.

The following observations can be made:

a) The work of SC24 deals primarily with the functional specification of
interfaces and with aspects of the presentation of and interaction with
information that are driven by and derived from such interface
specifications. There is only a minor focus on the coded representation of
information and even there it is common for an interface of interchange
format specification developed by SC24 to allow many different coded
representations depending on the characteristics of the specific application.

b) Based on observation (a) above, we conclude that the Multimedia &
Representation Technical Direction as presently defined by the JTC1
Reengineering Ad-hoc has only a minor relationship to the work of SC24 and
its present projects. In our view, choice of coded representation should be
driven by functional considerations and in this sense the work of SC24
would fall into a yet undefined Technical Direction that deals principally
with the functional aspects of the Presentation of and Interaction with
Information rather than the coded representation of such information.
Alternatively, the Multimedia & Representation Technical Direction could be
expanded to include both aspects, with a recognition that functionality
considerations are an important input to the development of coded
representations.

c) The Programming Languages and Software Interfaces Technical Direction as
defined by the JTC1 Reengineering Ad-hoc includes "systems software
interfaces".  The phrase includes "systems software interfaces" is so
ambiguous that it might be construed to include those used for the
Presentation of and Interaction with Information. While it may be
beneficial to recognize that there can be common generic approaches to
defining such interfaces (for example, a common set of language independent
data types or generic rules for constructing language bindings), the
functional specification of such interfaces should be defined by experts in
the particular subject matter, not by programming language experts. This is
true whether the "systems software interfaces" be those used for
Presentation of and Interaction with Information, Distributed Application
Services, Networking & Interconnects, Data Capture, Security, or another
area of Information Technology.

d) The proposed User Interfaces Technical Direction has aspects that
overlap (but do not strictly contain) many of SC24’s projects. This overlap
may be due to the poorly worded description that fails to differentiate
those aspects that are purely a "user interface" concern from those that
concern the Presentation of and Interaction with Information. It is widely
recognized by Information Technology specialists that the design and
implementation of effective "user interfaces" is a separate discipline from
the Presentation of and Interaction with Information. The latter has
sub-disciplines called computer graphics, multimedia, interactive
techniques, and so forth. The former consists of disciplines such as
human-computer interaction and human factors and is as much concerned with
psychology and organization dynamics as it is with Information Technology.
A technical direction in Presentation of and Interaction with Information
would provide the basic tools, techniques and infrastructure building
blocks that could then be used within a User Interfaces Technical Direction
to develop and define effective interfaces. By way of example, consider an
interface that uses iconic representations of familiar objects, such a file
folders. Experts working within a User Interfaces Technical Direction might
choose the best iconic way (in terms of the "picture", size, shape, color
etc.) to represent that object to a given class of users, perhaps dealing
with cross-cultural issues in the process. A Presentation of and
Interaction with Information Technical Direction would define abstract
techniques that could draw pictures of icons and show the state of an icon
(such as available, selected or disabled) based upon user interaction.
These abstract techniques could be used to display and interact with a wide
variety of icons and might by themselves be used to build either very
effective or very poor user interfaces. By combining the knowledge and
facilities developed by both Technical Directions a programmer could
construct an effective an standard user interface with minimal effort.

For these reasons, we believe that a new Technical Direction should be
added. It would be described as follows:

Presentation of and Interaction with Information

Functional and interface standardization for the presentation of and
interaction with information, including:
- computer graphics;
- multimedia;
- image processing; and
- interactive techniques

The work in the proposed Technical Direction can be clearly differentiated
from work in the Technical Directions proposed by the JTC1 Reengineering
Ad-hoc as described above. Some aspects of some of the projects within at
least the following SC’s fall within this new proposed Technical Direction:

- SC18 (aspects of "user interfaces" that deal with functional or interface
specification rather than "human computer interaction")
- SC22 (systems software specifications for interfaces used for the
Presentation of and Interaction with Information).
- SC24 (all)
- SC29 (functional specifications and architecture);

This proposed organization aligns with the real-world situation in
Information Technology. Both the Information Technology industry and the
academic community recognize disciplines of Computer Graphics and
Interactive Techniques and of Multimedia within organizations.  These
disciplines are supported by major professional organizations such as the
Association for Computing machinery (ACM) and Eurographics. Within the ACM
there is a Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics (SIGGRAPH) and
another for multimedia. Most experts that contribute to SC24 belong to
SIGGRAPH and many also belong to SIGMM and Eurographics. The annual meeting
of SIGGRAPH each year is the premier event in the computer graphics
industry worldwide and attracts approximately 5,000 fully paid technical
attendees as well as over 30,000 exhibits only registrations. SIGGRAPH also
sponsors more specialized conferences devoted to VRML (the subject of one
of SC24’s most active current projects) and 3D and Interactive Techniques
(one of SC24’s historical focus areas and the subject of standards such as
PHIGS.)

2. Do you believe your current projects (or project groupings) within the
proposed technical direction will benefit from a synergistic fit with other
projects,* (if any) in your technical direction?

If all current SC24 projects go within the Multimedia & Representation
Technical Direction as presently defined by the JTC1 Reengineering Ad-hoc,
there could be some synergistic benefits.  To achieve this, first the scope
of the proposed Multimedia & Representation Technical Direction would need
to be expanded to include the work of SC24 (which as described in the
response to Question 1 above is presently largely excluded the Multimedia &
Representation Technical Direction even though the JTC1 Reengineering
Ad-hoc indicates that is believes that all current SC24 projects fall
within that Technical Direction). Second, several other important changes
must be made in re-aligning the present work of other groups that fall in
this area. Some of these are:

a) There must be a strong commitment that in the future functional
specifications will drive the coded representation(s), not conversely. This
might in the future avoid the serious problems such as we see today in
attempting to apply coded representations developed from a narrow
perspective to the broader problems of the Presentation of and Interaction
with Information. Just one example is the error of leaving compression of a
fourth channel (alpha) out of representations such as JPEG which renders
them sub-optimal or unusable in multimedia systems where generative
computer graphics and images are merged at the client.

b) The broad needs of Information Technology in general for Multimedia &
Representation must be considered, not just the highly specialized needs of
one market segment such as "set-top boxes".

c) The manner in which work is organized and meetings are held within the
Technical Direction must be carefully considered. In particular, "Working
Groups" must be able to set their own meeting schedules, meet independently
of any parent organizations (except for perhaps at most once per year.) The
size of one of the SC’s alone that is proposed for inclusion within this
area (SC29) is already in the opinion of many too large to do the work in
an effective and timely manner.

Finally we note that if the work of SC24 is incorporated into the proposed
Multimedia & Representation Technical Direction with the proposed scope,
then most or all of SC24’s present cadre of technical experts will not
continue to participate in the work of JTC1 since they have generally
little interest in the specialized area of coded representations. Many of
these experts have worked together for almost twenty years to develop and
validate the technologies of device and platform independent computer
graphics, multimedia and interactive techniques that are the cornerstone of
the networked graphics systems that support commerce and technology in
almost all areas of human endeavor today. It would be a great loss to ISO
and IEC if their efforts moved solely into the many Consortia that today
vie with JTC1 for their attention.

3. Do you believe any of your current projects require significant
interactions with projects (or project grouping ) in other technical
directions?     If so which ones?

Yes. The focus of much of our current and future work is in the application
of our traditional technology focus (the Presentation of and Interaction
with Information) to distributed and networked environments, in particular
the World Wide Web. Current projects such as VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling
Language), newly proposed projects such as PNG (Portable Network Graphics),
and our future plans for standardization in the area of WWW based
presentation and interaction are designed for and directly applicable to
the needs of these environments.

Not only do the groupings proposed by the JTC1 Reengineering Ad-hoc not
represent the correct subdivision of Information Technology into
disciplines (as we explained in the case of our work in our answer to
Question 1) but they fail to minimize the interactions necessary in real
world projects. For example, implementing VRML based applications requires
innovative and interacting solutions from at least the following Technical
Directions:

- Distributed application services:  data bases, data structures and
semantics, directory, etc.

- Identification Cards and Related Devices:  personalization of interaction
(such as avatar characteristics) based upon identification of the
individual and matching to previously stated individual preferences.

- Multimedia and Representation:  efficient coded representations of
graphics, images, sound, genetic algorithms, etc.

- Networking & Interconnects:  protocols and services with throughput,
latency and other characteristics to support real-time interaction in
distributed and networked systems.

- Programming Languages & Software Interfaces:  languages and virtual
machines that can execute on the client side to customize user interaction.

- Security:  identification and authentication of users; safety of
executing software transferred on demand over a network.

- Software Engineering:  design and validation techniques for distributed
applications.

- User Interfaces:  paradigms and rules for the construction of effective
interfaces (such as navigation support in 3D worlds and the representation
of interaction devices and other real-world objects within a virtual world.)

- Presentation of and Interaction with Information (our proposed additional
Technical Direction): functional, interface and interchange format
specification of virtual worlds and their inhabitants; overall architecture
for Virtual Reality applications.

Moreover, many of the above interactions are not loose and decoupled ones,
but are of such a tight and time critical nature that they require joint
design and development activities with close liaisons.

We believe that the only solution to this problem is to adopt an
organization for JTC1 that is already common industry practice, that is, a
matrix organization. In such an organization there would be technical
discipline focused units (similar to but refined from the existing SC’s)
and a separate project structure where all aspects of project management
would be focused and which could draw upon resources from SC’s as required.
Such an organization is absolutely necessary because there is no one static
organization that is an ideal match for all projects.

4a. Do you believe supplementary standardization activity should be
undertaken to sufficiently address the technical direction and which adds
value to the work of JTC 1?  For example there appears to be added
standardization needs in the technical direction "Security"  beyond the
present work program of SC27.

SC24 is already very active in harvesting widely adopted industry
specifications into ISO standards. This harvesting is presently hampered by
the overlapping scopes of the present SC’s and will only be exacerbated by
the proposed Technical Directions.

An example of one such activity that is difficult or impossible to start
within the present or proposed JTC1 structure is an integrated approach to
the Presentation of and Interaction with Information over the WWW based on
VRML. As described above, this work partially falls within the scope of and
overlaps the activities of more than six(6) present SC’s and as many of the
new Technical Directions. SC24 cannot by itself initiate or coordinate all
the needed work. Only a matrix project organization could do this.

4b.  Do you consider that the resources to address these areas will be
available?

This work is presently being done in various Consortia outside of JTC1,
although the overlapping scopes of the Consortia themselves is hampering
the work today.

Since we regard the only proper role of JTC1 as that of harvesting
technologies that are developed and proven outside of JTC1 and making them
into ISO standards, the present core of experienced experts within our own
area is sufficient to handle the workload (assuming that industry and
government continue to recognize the value of and support our work.)

The main problem is in attracting experienced managers of large scale
projects into JTC1 at (the JTC1 level) to coordinate project-oriented
standards development.  The number of individuals required is not large,
but such people are scarce and their companies must be convinced that
devoting a large percentage of their time to a standards project will have
appropriate rewards. Currently JTC1 level participants are mostly standards
managers in companies, not managers of development activities. It is the
latter that are needed for an effective project approach to standards. 

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Steve Carson                 phone:   +1-505-521-7399
GSC Associates Inc.          fax:     +1-505-521-9321
5272 Redman Road             e-mail:  [email-masked]
Las Cruces, NM 88011 USA
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