Assessing Multimedia Content Adaptation Techniques With a View to Using Heterogeneous Handheld Devices in Performing Product Development Tasks

This paper articulates the potentials and limitations of the existing techniques for adapting product information contents for transmission among heterogeneous terminal devices and networks. The principal aim of the work was to understand, through a literature survey and empirical investigations, the affordances of the existing content adaptation techniques with a view to using handheld devices in performing product development tasks. Specifically, we reviewed and analyzed a wide range of the existing and emerging content adaptation techniques. The review has both revealed the potentials and shortcomings of the prevailing content adaptation strategies, and also has raised several questions for further research. Among the main shortcomings include lack of suitable mechanisms for adapting some specific contents used in product development such as for adapting 3D product models in context; and the inability of the existing mechanisms to guarantee the synchronization of both the meaning and the context of the content among heterogeneous terminal devices whilst meeting both resource constraints and task requirements. We have also identified the characteristic features we expect an ideal content adaptation mechanism to encompass, and used them as the basis for assessing the extents to which the existing techniques meet the adaptation requirements in product development. A concept and a generic architecture for content adaptation in a product development environment have subsequently been proposed. Overall, the existing content adaptation solutions provide only a subset of the desirable functional features. What is needed is a comprehensive adaptation mechanism, which among other things, handles 3D models and other types of product data; guarantees the synchronization of both the context and the meaning of the information content; considers the constraints posed by the heterogeneity of terminal devices and networks, and which at the same time also takes into account the task requirements and the specific needs and preferences of the users (who in the context of the work reported in this paper are the designers and engineers).