RFC 1197 (rfc1197) - Page 1 of 2
Using ODA for translating multimedia information
Alternative Format: Original Text Document
Network Working Group M. Sherman
Request for Comments: 1197 CMU
December 1990
Using ODA for Translating Multimedia Information
1. Status of this Memo
The purpose of this RFC is to inform implementors of multimedia
systems about our experiences using ISO 8613: Office Document
Architecture (ODA). Because ODA is being proposed as an encoding
format for use in multimedia mail and file exchange, implementors
wishing to use ODA in an open systems environment may profit from our
experiences. This memo provides information for the Internet
community. It does not specify any standard. Distribution of this
memo is unlimited.
2. Overview
ODA is a recently approved ISO (8613) and CCITT (T.410) standard for
representing documents containing multifont text, raster images and
geometric graphics. This encoding has been specified for use in a
number of related standards, such as X.400.
However, ODA is a very abstract standard, defining entities such as
"composite logical object classes" and not common entities, such as
"paragraphs". Therefore, effective use of ODA as an interchange
medium requires the definition of a document application profile
(dap) that defines some common entities and a map between ODA
entities defined in the dap and entities used in the interchanged
systems.
3. EXPRES Experiences
The National Science Foundation funded the EXPRES project, which
consisted of groups at Carnegie Mellon University (Information
Technology Center) and the University of Michigan (Center for
Information Technology Integration). These two groups collaborated
with groups at McDonnell-Douglas Aerospace Information Systems, NIST,
and Interleaf. Together, the five groups investigated the use of ODA
as an interchange medium for submitting research proposals by
electronic mail to the National Science Foundation.
Part of the investigations yielded strategies for using ODA. We based
our strategies on the NIST dap and the features provided by the
Andrew, Diamond, and Interleaf systems. Our experiences been
documented and published in a book [1]. The discussion may be
Sherman