jonathan@cs.keele.ac.uk (Jonathan Knight) (08/31/88)
Here is a summary of the responses to my request for information
regarding the ODA standard. I made the request quite general and
as a result got fairly varied replies.
You will find that there are many groups requesting help, help
that is offered by other contributors. Hopefully they will meet
up when they read this posting!
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From: John Dyer <NJIN04@UK.AC.RUTHERFORD.GEC-B>
Jonathan
I was forwarded your recent mail on ODA and can express more than a passing
interest in it.
I work in the Joint Network Team, which you probably have heard of. We
advise the Computer Board on the networking strategy for the whole academic
community and give advice and technical guidance to Universities, Research
Councils etc on equipment and standards issues.
I am the person in the JNT who is responsible for developing ODA within the
community. So far our work has been very low key, however during the comming
12 months I wish to raise the profile.
Yes I do have some documentation, eg the Standards plus and Introductory
Guide by the DTI.
DTI are sending me a number for distibution within the community. Send
me your address and you can have one.
As for work done so far. I have had a sandwich student here for a year,
he leaves at the end of Aug 88, and another has just started.
Their project is to produce a convertor for proprietary word processor
packages using the concepts of ODA.
At the moment it interconverts
from WordPerfect V4
IBM DCA
Diamond Wordprocessor (that our secretaries use)
possible extensions include
Tex
WordStar (Definite)
WordPerfect V5
Roff series
SGML
It uses ODIF as the exchange format with the PM1 profile.
It runs on an IBM/PC (compatible)
I would be interested in hearing about your involvement with ODA, and whether
there is any possiblility of interoperability testing.
I would also like copies of all mail you receive(d) as a result of your
request for information. If there was a sufficient interest I would consider
setting up a email distribution list on this machine.
John Dyer
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From: hrs@uucp.homxb
I have the IS of ODA, ISO 8613 or CCITT T.411-418. I would be willing to
give you more information if you would identify;
Your location
Your organization
Your address/phone
Herman Silbiger,
Chairman CCITT SG VIII Sub Working Party Document Architecture
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From: Robert Morris <ram%edu.umb.typo@relay.cs.net>
Requesting data about ODA is a little like requesting data about the
United Nations (in more ways than one). I am pretty sure you are
likely to get much more than is useful. Instead, I recommend reading
some of the papers in the Proceedings of EP88, the 2nd annual
Electronic Publishing conference. They are published by Cambridge
University Press. Editor is Hans VanVliet. Several papers there will
point you at good bibliographies.
There will also be papers about ODA in the December 1988 ACM
conference on Document Processing, to be held in Santa Fe, New Mexico,
with proceedings to follow.
Bob Morris
Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science
UMASS Boston
ram@typo.umb.edu or ram%typo.umb.edu@relay.cs.net
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From: David Haynes <david@uucp.geac>
There is an oda mailing list: oda@trigraph. It is currently being
administered by les@trigraph (UUCP).
-david-
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From: Lars Aronsson <aronsson@sics.se>
Organization: Swedish Institute of Computer Science, Stockholm
I'm not doing any ODA/ODIF myself, but here is what I know of:
USA
There is work going on at the Carnegie-Melon University.
Unfortunately, I have forgotten the name and address of any person
there.
Europe
"ESPRIT Project 1024 PODA was established in December 1985..."
Sweden
There is a Swedish Interest Group for DOcument Conversion (SIGDOC),
including the Swedish Telecom, DIAB Data (manufacturer of their own
68K-based UNIX systems) and Nokia Data (former Ericsson Information
Systems). They use an ODA Storage Manager, which they have bought from
ICL. People involved are listed below. I suggest you talk to Hakan
Odemalm (not ODAmalm!) in the first place.
Administrators:
Mr Bernt Palmqvist, Nokia Data (chairman)
Mrs/Miss Irene Perssob, Nokia Data
Mr Birger Workvist, Swedish Telecom
Mr Ingvar Larsson, DIAB Data
Mr Borje Brolin, Swedish Telecom
Technical:
Mr Hakan Odemalm, Swedish Telecom (project head)
Phone: +46-8-713 17 41
Mr Jerzy wasniewski, Nokia Data (sub-project head)
Mr Erik Jonsson, Swedish Telecom (sub-project head)
Postal addresses:
Televerkets Huvudkontor (Headquarters of Sw. Telecom)
123 86 FARSTA
Sweden
Phone: +46-8-713 00 00
Nokia Data
Kistagangen 26
163 98 STOCKHOLM
Sweden
Phone: +46-8-793 70 00
DIAB DATA AB
Box 2029
183 02 TABY
Sweden
Phone: +46-8-768 06 60
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From: rick@uucp.micomvax
Organization: Philips Electronics Ltd. (TDS - Montreal) St. Laurent QC, Canada
RE : ODA..
I am interested in seeingsome info on just who is doing what. Here, we have all
the documents and are working on and interactivee ODA editor.
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From: truett@com.portal.cup
I am interested in what has been done with ODA. I would also like to know if
it has any relation to the Compound Document Format defined in CCITT T.72
which also referencews T.61 (the Basic Teletext Standard). Since Class 3
Group IV fax machines are supposed to handle T.72, hence T.61, I wonder how
far these (nonexistent) machines will be from handling ODA. Note that T.61
implies at least a rudimentary NAPLPS capability.
Truett Lee Smith, Ph.D., Sunnyvale, CA
UUCP: truett@cup.portal.com
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From: Seyed Golkar <sgolkar@uk.ac.ucl.cs>
We here at UCL are currently giving some final touch-ups to our ODA translator
for a Multimedia document handling system. With the aids of this translator ODIF
encoded documents can be generated and/or processed.
I have got few papers all of which (although very similar in contents) briefly
describe ODA concepts. I have also got a copy of the final text of IS-8613 which
I am rather reluctant to send away, purely because I am heavily using it at the
moment.
The above mentioned translator. It is implemented based on SPAG Q/112 Document
Application Profile, and can cater for Character as well as Raster Graphics
Content Architectures. Addition of Geometric Graphic CA is being considered and
will soon be implemented.
Just for the record it may not be too unreasonable, I hope, for one to expect
distribution of your reply to your own message.
Seyed.
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From: Marvin Sirbu <ms6b+@edu.cmu.andrew>
Sender: ms6b+%edu.cmu.andrew@edu.cmu.andrew.po2
You expressed an interest in finding out more about people working on ODA. The
following two messages may be of some interest to you.
The EXPRES project referred to in the second message is a cooperative research
project between the U.S. National Science Foundation, Carnegie Mellon
University and the University of Michigan. The goal is to enable electronic
exchange of multimedia documents among heterogeneous text systems. As a first
step, we are developing ODA-based tools to enable exchange between the CMU
Andrew Toolkit environment (a multi-media object oriented system) and the
Diamond multi-media document system originally developped by Bolt Beranek and
Neuman, and supplied to the U of Michigan. Translators for Microsoft Rich Text
Format, Word Perfect, and Interleaf Technical Publishing System are also being
developed by CMU, the U.S. National Bureau of Standards, and McDonnell Douglas
respectively, all using the ODA Toolkit being written at CMU.
Marvin Sirbu
Carnegie Mellon University
---------- Forwarded message begins here ----------
From: Peter Williams <mcvax!cs.qmc.ac.uk!peterw>
We are now actively searching for other non-commercial sites with whom
to exchange ODIF documents. This is begin quality testing of our
interactive SUN oda-editor. (Turnkey-solution distribution of this
editor-fax/telex/teletex/mixed-mode/station is expected to begin by
the end of the year; after which well go through SUN Microsystems European
distributution channels for end-Users.)
I suggest exchange via isode ftam for ease, else by 1984 X400.
Sites particularly sought after should be able to cope with both
generic structures, either by some kind of *intelligent* ODIF-wp conversion
trick, or with other oda-editors. For the moment we are happy
just to get just mixed-mode demonstrably working with other
implementations.
We will be happy to exchange Q112 DAP information streams when
this latter has stabalised; we now have to go off and implement logical
source - I must presume (from Q112 headers) it eventually remained in the IS!
I suppose we'll also have to go and implement the CGM format
for the GKS meta-file output of the geometric editor.
Oh well, more work; shouldnt expect simplicity or an easy life from being
associated with ODA!
---------- Forwarded message begins here ----------
From: Mark Steven Sherman <mss+@andrew.cmu.edu>
As part of the EXPRES project, we are in the process of building both an ODA
toolkit and some sample translators between ODA and other multimedia systems.
Initially, our translators will be using only a small set of features from ODA,
though we expect that our toolkit will support all of ODA.
Part of the toolkit generates ODIF streams and reads ODIF streams. We are
already producing ASN1 for some features, though not a complete, legal ODIF
stream. The reader is designed but not yet implemented. However, we would be
quite willing to show you what we are producing and to read what you have. (We
are very concerned about our ability to process legal ODIF, since it is very
easy to write something only you can read w/o ever knowing that anything is
wrong.) As the ODIF module is under daily development, additional functions are
constantly coming into being, so I think that in the near future (end of
August?) we might be able to exchange processable documents (in rough terms,
our translators follow the NBS-AP, which means specific logical, complete
generic logical, and complete generic layout. In our first pass, we hope to
handle text and rasters, but not geometric graphics. At CMU, we do not plan our
translators to handle specific layout).
To the best of my knowledge, we at CMU do not suport either X.400 or ftam.
However, we do use Unix, and if you are on a Sun, we can both use uuencode and
regular mail to get ODIF streams around.
Please let me know what you think (and if you have a preferred Internet
address, what that is as well. The one from trigraph looks like a hodge-podge
of Usenet and Internet).
Mark Sherman
EXPRES Project
Information Technology Center
Carnegie-Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA. 15213
(412) 268-6727
mss@andrew.cmu.edu
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From: jonathan@cs.kl.ac.uk
I am currently researching into the protocol needed to implement
a multi-media ODA editor on a distributed system. The research is
in early days yet and so I'm looking for introductory texts to
help me get started on the right foot.
stevep@cs.kl.ac.uk (Stephen Philips) is also working on an ODA
editor but based on Small Talk. You should contact him directly
if you want more information.
--
_____ Jonathan Knight, || JANET: jonathan@uk.ac.keele.cs
/ Department of Computer Science || UUCP: ...!ukc!kl-cs!jonathan
/ _ __ University of Keele, Keele, |+--------------------------------
(_/ (_) / / Staffordshire. ST5 5BG. U.K. || Avoid reality at all costs.mhsc@oce-rd1.oce.nl (Maarten Schoonwater) (09/02/88)
I have tried to reply on your message too. It looks like my reply didn't get to you so I post it here. In article <109@kl-cs.cs.kl.ac.uk> you write: > >1) Do you have any ODA Documents? >2) Do you know of any good texts on ODA. >3) What software have you developed for ODA. > Our group here at Oce research is participating in th Esprit project PODA, Piloting the Office Document Architecture. This project was established in 1986 by Siemens (prime contractor), ICL, Olivetti, Bull and TITN (Fr). Subcontractors were QMC (uk) and SEPT (French PTT lab). Oce joint in 1987. The project was recently joint by Nixdorf and UCL (the group of prof Peter Kirstein). The project has been the key development center for ODA in Europe and has showed two succesfull interworking demos at Hanover Fair 1987 and 88. In '87 only processible form was exchanged in 88 also formatted form (that's were our laserprinters came in). To come to your questions: 1) I suppose you mean documents in ODIF interchange format. For the moment we don't have any reliable documents available due to the switch from DIS8613 to IS8613. In October we will be quit ahead with our 89 demo stuff. 2) There are some good articles available, no decent books yet but there is a course from Technology Appraisals given a.o by Ian Campbell Grant, one of the editors of the ISO WG. An introduction to ISO DIS8613 I.R. Campbell-Grant, P J Robinson Computers and graphics, Vol11, no4 pp 325-341, 1987. The ISO/ECMA/CCITT document architecture Informal introduction by L.J. Zeckendorf ISO/CCITT 1985 "Document editing andentry based on the standardized Office Document Architecture" G Kronert et all in "Esprit 1986:Results and Achievements" Elsevier Science Publishers (North Holland) 1987. Our project will present a paper with the latest developments at the Esprit Conference in November. We will also feature a demonstration there. 3) A lot of software has been developed of course. The basic idea is that you take a document from your local WP format and convert that into ODIF. The project has developed a software interface, the ODA Storage Manager, informally called SODA, stored ODA, consisting of a set of 'C'-structures which represent the values of he according ODA constituents and a library interface. Another module then converts the SODA structures into a binary ODIF stream. There is also a lot of work going on on native ODA editors (so called class driven editors) but those still in the prototype phase. In the US the Expres project, sponsored by the NSF is working on ODA. They are also developing a toolkit which should be released early next year. The work is mainly done by CMU (Carnegy Mellon) and UM (Uni Michigan). I hope that this information is of help for you, if you need more information feel free to ask. Maarten Schoonwater Oce Nederland BV mhsc@oce.nl This note does not necessarily represent the position of Oce-Nederland B.V. Therefore no liability or responsibility for whatever will be accepted.