The Farnborough, Hampshire-based Rothwell Group has decided take advantage of the lack of multimedia applications development in the market; a factor that recent research has indicated is resulting in businesses not taking full advantage of the opportunities multimedia has to offer. Last month the firm set up a new programme, Multimedia In Action, aimed at offering practical business applications rather than just clever demonstrations of the technology. Under the programme, Cybergraphics Ltd has teamed with the company to develop the new BeingThere applications being offered. It developed the Remote Familiarisation System – an interactive system combining text, motion video, photographic images, high resolution graphics and sound with a management system, enabling users to access chosen locations via a network of interconnecting paths. There is also a map on screen to show the structure of the database that the user can move through. Still images are the basis of the system, but motion video can also be added. Photographs are taken every ten feet of the location to be viewed, for example, the sewer system – one application the firm has developed. Users can move through at their chosen speed, from O to 25 frames per second. Compression and decompression are performed by the Media Space board from Videologic Ltd, working under a Windows 3.0 operating environment. Resolution is 1,024 by 768 and the applications will be offered on either a Windows or Macintosh environment. Pointer Communication Ltd is providing graphic design skills so that the applications are more visually accurate for the business user. The finished applications are likely to cost from UKP30,000 to UKP70,000, a price Rothwell says it can accurately forecast to within 10%. Cybergraphics has invested around UKP100,000 in cash, people and research for the project, while Rothwell has invested its marketing resources. Whether businesses will take a real interest in the multmedia applications remains to be seen. So far the firm has only received interest from potential customers and no definite sales.
