MigriXML

What is MigriXML?
MigriXML is a virtual reality system representing the user?s real environment, based on UsiXML models: the platforms found in that environment, the UI of interactive graphics applications that are executed on these platforms, and the user. Within that virtual environment, the user interacts with the platforms and the running applications as if they were their real counterparts.

The main characteristic of MigriXML is that it supports the run-time user interface migration between computing platforms. The user can select any application, and make the related UI emigrate from the source platform and immigrate in a target platform. To do so, the user presses the button (M) -which stands for "migrate" - that can be found in the button bar of the application window. As a result, the user "grabs" the window, and from that very moment the window will follow the user's cursor within the screen of the source platform and any other platform, being rendered according to the resolution and definition of the pointed screen.

As a virtual reality system, its architecture is based on a graphics platform that executes a run-time simulation environment. In order to render the virtual representation of the user's environment, platforms and applications, MigriXML has been designed integrating these components in its own architecture:

• User's environment: it is the virtual world rendered by the virtual reality software.
• Platform: The hardware layer is called Virtual Hardware (VHW) and it is the visible part of the platform in the virtual world, the part that the user interacts with through the I/O channels that the Virtual Reality system offers. The software layer is named Virtual Machine (VM), and it includes the component that is responsible for the application windows, the Virtual Window Manager (VWM).
• Interactive graphics application: Based on the Arch meta-model, its interaction toolkit component is substituted by a component that renders the UI in the 3D space where the virtual world exists. The domain-specific component is executed by the platform emulator, that is, the virtual machine introduced in the previous point.
• Migration Manager (MM): Its role in this Virtual Reality simulation is to respond to user's requests for migration of interactive graphics applications from given platforms to selected targets. The migration manager exploits the UsiXML specifications of these applications.

The implementation of the current version of MigriXML is based on VRML97/X3D languages, which are standards for the description of Web-oriented virtual worlds. In the particular case of the user interfaces, their implementation is based on a set of PROTOs called VUIToolkit, which has been developed in both VRML97 and X3D versions. A more detailed description of VUIToolkit can be found elsewhere in this website.

Screenshots/video


Two videos are available:

• video 1
• video 2

Author
José Pascual Molina Masso

Publications

• Vanderdonckt, J., Mendonça, H., Molina Massó, J.P., Distributed User Interfaces in Ambient Environment, Proc. of AmI-07 Workshop on “Model Driven Software Engineering for Ambient Intelligence Applications” MDA-AMI’07 (Darmstadt, November 7-10, 2007), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 2007, pp. 44-52.
  
• Molina, J.P., Vanderdonckt, J., González, P., Fernández-Caballero, A., Lozano, M.D., Rapid Prototying of Distributed User Interfaces, Proc. of 6th Int. Conf. on Computer-Aided Design of User Interfaces CADUI'2006 (Bucharest, 6-8 June 2006), Chapter 12, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 2006, pp. 151-166.
  
• Molina, J.P., Vanderdonckt, J., González, P., Direct manipulation of User Interfaces for Migration, Proc. of 10th ACM Int. Conf. on Intelligent User Interfaces IUI'2006 (Sydney, 29 January-1 February, 2006), ACM Press, New York, 2006, pp. 140-147.