PUT ON YOUR THINKING CAP

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PUT ON YOUR THINKING CAP

• Q1. Media can be classified into 6 criteria which
  are Presentation medium,?
• Q2. What is the role of an Instructional
  Designer?
• Q3. What are Representation Spaces
  Representation Values?
• Q4. Define with examples the Time-Independent
  Media Time-Dependant Media.

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ITC 751 MULTIMEDIA TECHNOLOGY

• CHAPTER 2
• DIGITAL DATA
• TEXT - Character Fonts - Classification
• 
  Choice of Fonts
• - Using Text in MM - Font
  Terminology
• - Text Technology - Hypertext

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MULTIMEDIA BUILDING BLOCKSCharacters and Fonts

• Text has a dual role in nature first as a
  visual representation of language, and second as
  a graphic element in its own way.
• Text in its digital form is also a representation
  of language as we need to relate bit patterns to
  the symbols of written language.
• The display of text is the concern of the visual
  aspect such as the precise shape of characters,
  spacing, layout and others.
• These issues of display are traditionally the
  concern of Typography.

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• Text in the form of words, sentences and
  paragraphs is used to communicate thoughts, ideas
  and facts in nearly every aspect of our lives.
  Text technology forms the basis for many
  Multimedia systems and knowing how it is created,
  edited, stored and used are critical to the
  development of Multimedia products systems.

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• The following are some considerations and
  guidelines when working with text
• Be Concise
• Reading volumes of text can be difficult and
  tiring especially when it is on a computer.
  Although there are titles where text
  predominates, combining text with other elements
  can often reduce the amount of text needed to
  convey a concept.
• Use Appropriate Fonts
• Huge, gray blocks can be boring to read.
  Selecting typefaces called fonts and type sizes
  appropriate to the audience can enliven text.
  Fonts find its usefulness in focusing attention
  on certain text on the screen, enhancing
  readability, setting a tone (serious or not) and
  projecting an image (progressive, conservative).

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• Make it Readable
• The concern with text is its readability.
  Extensive use of decorative font may be difficult
  to read though little usage may be attractive.
  Filling the screen with a lot of text or reducing
  the size of the type can hinder readability.
• Consider Types Styles and Colors
• Three common type styles are bold, italic and
  underline are normally used to provide emphasis
  on print materials. In Multimedia applications,
  they are often used to indicate hypertext or
  hotwords.

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• Use Restraint and Be Consistent
• It is important to exercise restraint when using
  various typefaces, sizes and styles. Be sure to
  avoid the ransom note effect that is a busy and
  difficult to read design resulting from extensive
  use of fonts and type styles on one screen.

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Using Text in Multimedia Applications

• Text is used for a variety of purposes that
  include
• a. Providing identification of objects such as
  pictures or program labels
• Labels are usually found in title bar windows or
  as identifiers for input functions such as text
  input boxes. Captions act as logos and
  identifiers for other information and these
  labels and captions are short and to the point.
  They should stand out from the background and
  captions that lay over a picture utilizes
  anti-aliasing method to help the font blend
  smoothly.

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• b. Delivering information in the form of captions
  and bulk text
• Informational text consists of a number of
  words, sentences and paragraphs that convey a
  message. Captions should be a significant
  contrast in color between the font and the
  background. Scroll bars should be used for large
  amount of text rather than shrinking the text to
  fit the display. Informational text for
  Multimedia is usually prepared in another program
  through

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• i. Text is stored in files that are external to
  the application font type, size, color and other
  features are set within the application.
• ii. Text is stored within the application data
  file. Font type, size, color and other features
  can be set.

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• c. Assisting the user in navigating around the
  application
• Text- based controls for computer applications
  include buttons, list boxes, drop-down lists and
  window menus. Text in buttons and list boxes need
  to be clear and concise. Contrast between the
  font and the background is critical for making
  the control easy to see and use.

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• TEXT
• It is one of the fundamental building blocks of
  Multimedia applications. Although it is possible
  to have multimedia without text, most multimedia
  systems use text because it is such an effective
  way to communicate ideas and provide instructions
  to users. There are generally four kinds of text
  
• a. Printed text
• It appears on paper. In order for a multimedia
  computer to read printed text, you need to
  transform the text into machine readable form.
  There are two ways to do it 1. To type the text
  into a word processor and 2. To scan the text.

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• b. Scanned text
• Scanners can read printed text and convert it
  into machine-readable form.
• c. Electronic text
• Texts that is available in machine-readable
  form. These texts can be read by a computer and
  transmitted electronically over networks.
• d. Hypertext
• Hypertext refers to text that has been linked.
  When you view a hypertext and click a word that
  has been linked, your computer launches the
  object of that link.

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Text Technology

• Character Sets
• As text has a dual nature, it is quite
  convenient to distinguish between the lexical
  content of a piece of text and its appearance.
• Content means that the characters that make up
  the words and other units like the punctuation or
  mathematical symbols. (here, content does not
  mean the meaning)
• The text appearance comprises visual attributes
  precise shape of the characters, size, the way
  content is arranged.

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• This is based on creating letters, numbers and
  special characters such as periods, commas and
  dollar signs to build words, sentences, and
  paragraphs of information. Text elements call
  into a number of categories such as
• Alphabet characters English A Z both lowercase
  and uppercase
• Numbers from 0 9
• Special characters punctuation( , !), signs
  (,)and non-printed characters (carriage return)

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• Typefaces are the graphic representations of the
  alphabet, number, special characters and usually
  vary by type sizes and styles.
• To display a piece of text, each stored character
  value (mapping characters and their relative
  values) must be mapped to a visual representation
  of the characters shape. This representation is
  called a glyph.
• A single character can be represented by a
  multitude of different glyphs whereby small
  changes done do not destroy the fundamental
  identity of the character being represented.
• e.g. glyphs for lower case q ( q q q q q q q q )

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• Glyphs are arranged into collections called
  fonts. However the use of glyphs could increase
  the size of the text. An option to this is to use
  Monostyled text (texts that are displayed in a
  single font, plain ASCII).
• When such a file is displayed, the character
  codes are used to select glyphs from a font,
  either a default system font or a single font
  selected by the user from within the program
  being used to display the text.
• However, Monostyled texts is rarely adequate for
  Multimedia production where a richer typographic
  experience is usually required. So where might
  fonts be found?

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• These glyphs can be taken either from fonts
  stored on the system being used to display text
  or from fonts embedded in the text file.
• The latter case provides an advantage as
  Multimedia designers can use fonts of their
  choice and be confident that the fonts will be
  available when needed because they are embedded
  in the same file as the text.
• If a font is not available, some undesirable
  consequences can occur. In an extreme case, there
  could be a system crash but or likely text in the
  missing font is not displayed or it will be
  displayed in a substituted font.

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• The substitution can
• a. seriously impaired a carefully thought out
  design
• b. cause incorrect positioning and individual
  text appearance (character width)
• c. cause ragged margins in place of a straight
  one, uneven gaps within or between words
• These defects have detrimental effects on the
  appearance of text making it hard to read and
  unpleasant.

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Classification and Choice of Fonts

• A Font is a particular size of a typeface. Here
  are some of the broad characteristics used to
  help classify them.
• Monospaced (fixed-width) vs. proportional fonts
• Monospaced font characters occupy the same amount
  of horizontal space regardless of shape. e.g.
  Courier , Lucida Typewriter
• Some may have more white space around them than
  others. e.g. l and m
• This makes an even appearance and easier to read.
  Suitable for headings and low-tech appearance.

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• Proportional font has the appearance of a
  traditional book and usually used for lengthy
  texts. e.g. Times, Lucida Bright, Garamond,
  Helvetica
• Generally felt more readable as letters appear to
  be tightly bound together into words.

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• Another very broad distinction is Serified and
  Sans Serif.
• Serifs are the little strokes added to the ends
  of character shapes or the decorative tips or
  flags at the end of the strokes. Serifs originate
  in marks produced by chisels on Roman stone
  inscriptions hence Roman fonts.
• e.g. C Times New Roman, Bookman

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• Sans Serif fonts do not have this feature. In
  some typographical catalogues they are identified
  by another name grotesques. This was indeed the
  case in 19th century as they have crude designs
  mostly used for advertising and posters. Sans
  Serif fonts include. Arial, Lucida Bright Sans.
• Gaining ground with more elegant and refined
  designs as shown in Helvetica.
• Spacing makes more difference in deciding which
  type is more readable.
• However, Serifs are very small features,
  therefore difficult to render accurately under
  low resolution, making it hard to read on a
  screen.

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• A third classification is based on broad
  categories of shape upright shape vs. italic
  shape.
• Upright fonts have characters whose vertical
  strokes (stems) are truly vertical.
• Italic fonts have a certain style of handwriting
  where letters slanted to the right. Italic
  fonts are produced by applying a transformation
  to an upright font but the calligraphic features
  of true italic are missing.

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Other fonts to consider

• Calligraphic font - e.g. Chancery
• Outline font (gimmicks) hollow letters, drop
  shadows
• Condensed appear somewhat squashed
  horizontally, marginal notes, narrow newspaper
  columns
• Extended stretched out horizontally, headings,
  isolated text elements
• Finally fonts can be classified according to
  their weight the thickness of their strokes
  i.e.. Thick strokes (boldface/bold)

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• One subjective classification of font is based
  on the most suitable job for a font text fonts
  and display fonts.
• The distinction is between fonts suitable for
  continuous text, like a book/article, and those
  suitable for short pieces of isolated text, like
  headings, signs or ads. slogans on posters.
• Text fonts must not be obtrusive, so they do not
  intrude on the reader or interfere with the
  message of the text. It must be easy to read, do
  not cause fatigue when read for hours at time.
  (However, this also depends on whether the font
  is familiar.)

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• Display fonts intention is to get across a short
  message. Garish design, offensive to text font,
  becomes eye-catching as innovation attracts
  attention. There is a great diversity of design
  in display fonts than text. Text fonts continue
  to be used year after year but display fonts are
  subject of fashion.
• Fonts can be grouped into families. A font family
  corresponds to what is traditionally called a
  typeface. A font is a particular style of some
  typeface.

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Font Terminology

• Typography has its own specialized vocabulary
  some of which is necessary to understand. A
  fonts size is quoted in points as in 12pt Times
  New Roman i.e. the body size. This could mean the
  height between the top of the highest character
  and the bottom of the lowest character.
• In addition to typeface and size the following
  characteristics are also used to physically
  describe text

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• Ascender is an upstroke on a character, and can
  be found in the letters h, b , d
• Descender is the downstroke below the baseline of
  a character, for eg p, q, y
• Leading (pronounced ledding) is the spacing above
  and below a font that is the line spacing
• Kerning is the space between pairs of characters,
  usually as an overlap for improved appearance.
  Two related operations Letter spacing changing
  the space between all letters in a font through
  stretching squeezing, Tracking the systematic
  spacing between characters depending on font
  size large letters need less space

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• x T h y p

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• We need to consider not only the features of
  individual letters but also the combination of
  the same. Each letter has a bounding box.
• e.g.
• Sometimes when two letters are placed together,
  the total amount of space between them looks too
  big or too small. The adjustment process is
  called kerning.

K
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• However, some character combinations still will
  not look right. Traditionally printers replace
  such troublesome sequences by single composite
  characters known as ligatures. e.g. ff, fl, fi
• There is no standard set and they are stored as
  extra characters in the font.
• Normally kerning and ligatures are dealt with
  automatically by high quality text layout
  software.

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• Graphical systems are able to create and use
  fonts due to the rasterization process. It occurs
  when the computer draws the font onto the display
  one pixel at a time. Fonts, depending on the size
  and the number of pixels used to draw them can be
  jagged making them more difficult to read and
  follow.
• A technique called anti-aliasing is used to blend
  the font into the background by transitioning the
  color from the font color to the background color
  thus minimizes the jagged edges making for a
  smoother appearance.

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• Fonts and Operating Systems One of the major
  problems with so many fonts is that they can be
  platform and machine specific. Normally we use
  the fonts that are native to a particular
  operating system. If special fonts have been
  installed in a computer to create a product,
  then the same fonts should be installed on any
  other machine to display the same product.

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Hypertext

• History
• Vannever Bush is the originator of the concept
  through MEMEX (MEmory EXtender) though it was
  never implemented but exists on paper.
• The machine is meant for browsing and annotating
  a large collection of documents. It also included
  a mechanism for creating links between documents,
  allowing documents related to the one currently
  being read to be retrieved. He developed this
  topic in 1932 and published a descriptive article
  We May Think in 1945.

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• Doug Engelbart developed a project augmenting the
  human capability Augment at Stanford Research
  Institute (SRI) 1962 1976. One part of it is
  NLS (oN Line System) which has hypertext
  properties.
• Several experimental systems were developed late
  1960s and early 1970s. Ted Nelson used the notion
  Hypertext for the first time in 1965 in his
  XANADU system where all information that human
  beings described at any time, was contained. It
  was intended to be a global system, storing the
  entire worlds literature. It was not implemented
  until now. The word hypertext was devised in
  connection to Xanadu.

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• Further experimental system were developed in
  1970s to 1980s. The arrival of Hypercard stacks
  in 1987, developed and mass distributed by Apple,
  become synonymous with hypertext irrespective of
  any flaws in its interface and model.
• Among the features were a card-based metaphor
  for organizing linked material, support for a
  variety of media, scripting language that allows
  actions associated with events and controls on
  the card.

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• Hypercard brought Hypermedia from the lab into
  the world by which WWW made it a cultural
  phenomenon.
• Its evolution began from a simple distributed
  hypertext system into a full hypermedia system
  with interactivity.

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Nature of Hypertext

• Multimedia productions often make heavy use of
  hypertext. It is text augmented with
  links/pointers to other pieces of text elsewhere
  in the same document, or in another document at a
  different location.
• A browser reads hypertext document as data and
  remembers where you came from as to allow
  backtrack.
• Browsers tend to encourage people to read
  hypertext in a non-linear fashion.

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A penny for your thought

• Non-linearity also appear in other forms ???
• A collection of articles?
• Encyclopedia?
• Software manual?
• Technical reference material?
• Novel?
• But what is novel and distinctive about
  computer-based hypertext is the immediacy
  providing qualitatively different experience.

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Navigation and Structure in Hypertext

• Possibility of disorientation lost in
  hyperspace derived from fragmentation and
  disruption of the context. User can browse
  endlessly but it also resemble a maze.
• Early thinkers suggested the provision of
  graphical views of the link structure between a
  collection of nodes. It is still difficult to
  provide enough information of a nodes content
  for users to determine its relevance to his
  search. This has been abandoned.

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• A browser maintains a stack of recently visited
  nodes in the form of a history list. However this
  is of limited size.
• It is more useful to summarize this activity in
  the form of pointers like the bookmarks where
  they can be organized into a hierarchy and
  sorted.
• Browsing is based on looking for information by
  its associations. A more natural alternative is
  to find information on the basis of its content
  similar to information retrieval and database
  querying.

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• Hypertext systems use text that is indexed or
  marked up to navigate through large volumes of
  information. There are two general strategies for
  hypertext systems
• a. Indexed Retrieval
• Consists of text that is keyed or indexed to
  other words. These systems are automated so that
  a software program is used to build the indexes
  from the raw text resource. This system can be
  partially or fully indexed.

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• Text is usually highlighted indicating a link to
  another word or another part of the documentation
  containing related material
• Set of words (key words) are identified and
  automatically linked to other key words or terms
• In a fully indexed system, text is fully
  categorized that is all words are indexed for
  fast retrieval very processor intensive and
  requires significant storage space to track all
  links

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• Search mechanism may be applied to either type
  of indexing system
• Search mechanism can be used to search all words
  or indexed words
• Can use Boolean constructs (AND, OR, NOT and
  BOTH)
• Categorical limiting documents, pages, fields
• Word relationship word proximity or order
• Adjacency finding words near other words
  doctor within five words of medicine
• Truncation search words with pre- or suffixes

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• b. Linked or Hyperlink
• This system uses specific linkages between text
  elements and bookmarks within a document or
  between documents. Bookmarks are predefined
  location in document that can be referenced by
  hyperlinks. Every link is set and defined by an
  author
• A text expression that is highlighted or set
  apart by underlining, bolding or other means to
  differentiate its appearance
• Link information that is correlated to the
  highlighted text and the destination.

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• And now,
• A gift for the whole class

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Individual Assignment Asg. 1

• Question.
• Choose any Multimedia scenario / environment and
  discuss on the use of Multimedia, providing some
  comments on the its usefulness, pros and cons,
  suggestions etc.
• Format
• Printed copy with Arial 11pt, single spacing,
  proper paragraphing and pagination (no less than
  3 pages)
• Front cover containing Program, Subject, Full
  name and ID no, Title, Lect, Received and
  Submission date
• Due date 6 February 2003