Multimedia European Research Conferencing Integration
What is the MERCI project?
This is a summary of the project objectives and work planned.
The complete Project Plan is available
also as RTF.
The objective of the project is to provide all the technology
components, other than the data network itself, to allow proper
deployment of the tools for European multimedia collaboration in Europe.
We will improve our tools over the earlier MICE tools, which were
developed during 1992-95, in many important aspects:
- Better integrated facilities, so more easily used by untrained
users;
- Better capability for higher quality video, audio and shared
workspace facilities;
- Inter-operable cross-platform support for many systems - UNIX
workstations, PCs and MACs
- Better support for the introduction into and recording of
multimedia information in conferences;
- Support for different network technologies - mainly over IP:
packet-switched, ATM or SMDS and ISDN;
- Inter-operation between workstations running the multicast
Internet and the normal CCITT procedures;
- Facilities for secure conferencing - with easy distribution of
keys and information;
- Distributed measurement, monitoring and control
Verification activities will be pursued both inside the project and
in other Telematics projects:
- Regular research seminars given from the sites of the partners -
and from North America
- Annual interactive workshops in invasive surgery given at UCL -
transmitted internationally, and with some operations coming from
other countries;
- Industrial trials with commercial organisations including our
sponsoring partners Hewlett Packard & Shell
- Use in the research community, including by our sponsoring
partner UKERNA and by other Telematics projects including MANICORAL
and COBROW.
Besides tools from earlier EU projects, it will utilise results from
concurrent Telematics projects:
- Security tools from the ICE-TEL and Shared Visualisation tool
from MANICORAL.
The work packages
There are 13 workpackages in the project.
Management
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