HyperMedia Home Page
HyperMedia Home PageToday's most advanced means for presenting information - hypermedia technology - lies at the heart of HyperMedia Corporation's (HMC) HyperEdge information management solution.
In the word hypermedia, "hyper" means "transcending." while "media" refers to all forms in which information is delivered, such as text, still or moving pictures, and sound, among others. Thus, hypermedia technology goes beyond the power of a single media type and beyond the power of several loosely connected data stores. From a base of networked, UNIX computers, HMC applies hypermedia technology to electronically interconnect multiple data types or data stores into cohesive, associative knowledge bases.
Specifically, HMC's hypermedia software offering is called the HyperEdge Environment. This family of products empowers you to link information actross media barriers. It helps you add value (expertise) to information by enabling the creation of interpretive markings, annotations, or new presentations of data without altering the original data source.
The result is a powerful, yet flexible electronic knowledge base that can be tapped and used in varied forms. Each separate piece of data becomes a part of a greater, more natural package of knowledge.
Embedding the HyperEdge Environment into your computing system allows users to author documents that incorporate text, images, and sound. Any data, located anywhere on the network, that can be read and retrieved for display at the author's workstation, can be linked into a HyperJournal, without destroying the integrity of the original data source. Such HyperEdge authored documents, called HyperJournals, can then be navigated, or browsed, by other approved network users in a "view-only" mode.
HyperAuthor provides all the capabilities needed to author a HyperJournal. In addition, you can fully explore and navigate through new or existing HyperJournals from withing the HyperAuthor module. With HyperAuthor you can:
Retrieve images, text, or sound data
Make links
Create interpretive overlays
Classify data for rapid, intelligent retrieval
Edit links an overlays
Create tours through the data
Conduct all the HyperNavigator operations as follows
Authoring is the process of linking and intepreting pieces of data contained in files accessible to the workstation where the software is running. HyperMedia supports a wide range of data formats to facilitate this process.
Broadly, the authoring scenario is to retrieve a piece of data and build an overlay for it. Overlays are analogous to marking on transparent material. The basic steps for building an overlay are to classify it, draw interpretive markings (lines, fill patters, colors, labels, etc.), build links from it to the overlays associated with other data pieces, and then save the overlay.
Once created, the collection of associated data and overlays can be viewed, or browsed, as a HyperJournal, by the original author in navigator mode. They can also be accessed by other user who have been granted "navigation" privileges by the author or system administrator.
HyperJournals are hyperlinked, or cross-referenced collections of multimedia data, information, knowledge, and wisdom. A HyperJournal is a group of electronic data items that an author(s) has decided to present together, using the HyperAuthor module for the HyperEdge environment. HyperJournals typically include a combination of digitized text, images, and/or sound. In this context, "include" refers to links, classifications, locations on the disk, and similar means for associating data. Links can also be made to call other HyperJournals or other UNIX programs. A key concept behind HyperJournals is their flexibility - almost any data can be included and displayed in a wide variety or formats.
HyperJournals already authored can be browsed from any workstation running the HyperEdge environment. Overlays are stored in a local sub directory, but digitized raw data can be retrieved from anywhere on the network. In addition to looking at the data, you can traverse links freely and retrieve data in several ways.
HyperNavigator provides all the capabilities needed to fully explore and navigate existing HyperJournals. However, HyperNavigator users cannot modify a HyperJournal in any way. With HyperNavigator, your can:
Traverse links,
Browse through the data in page order, tour order, previous session (repeatable sequence) order or via links,
Retrieve data from disk, as previously viewed, by bookmark, by classification,
Save sessions,
Make notes,
Place, go to, and remove bookmarks.
Among the many uses for HyperEdge Tecnology are:
Audio-Visual Presentations (Since hypermedia documentation occurrs as part of the regular work process, presentations can be given at any time from raw data.)
Best Practice Database (On-line listings of Skills, Processes, Solutions, and Resources tied to Continuous Improvement.)
Distributed Research (Automatically replicating HyperJournals across the INTERNET to allow technical collaboration.)
Document Image Management (Presently being used by a major oil company for quality control of 20,000 40-100 MB tiff images scanned each month, as well providing a point-and-click front-end to an Oracle <sql> relational data base management system.)
Dynamic Phamplets (Runtime hyperJournals to present the capabilities of a product or service to potential customers on their personal workstations, for access when it is convient for them.)
Embedded/Automatic Documentation (Automatic creation of a digital corporate memory, which is accessible by expert Tours or by boolean searches using a Class Menu. The Class Menu can be user defined or can be derived from a generic Data Model.)
Information Management (HyperEdge Experts can provide seed documentation for your critical activities, implement and train in the use of the hypermedia electronic documentation tool of choice, and externally benchmark Best Practices.)
Process Modeling (A means of traversing IDEF(O) Activity models and tying them to other data, information, knowledge, or wisdom.)
Project Management (The experience available through the HyperEdge Expert Association allows either mentoring or outsourcing of the management significant projects, with confidence that the same mistakes that have been seen in the past will not be repeated.)
Product Tutorials (Screen capture as well as point-and-click authoring of HyperJournals allows easy creation of electronic tutorial and technology transfer documents.)
Recursive Reference (HyperJournals calling other HyperJournals or other programs, and then calling the initial HyperJournal.)
RIMS: Reservoir Information Management System (A common data repository for data from geologists, geophysicists, petrophysicists, engineers, etc. for creating an on-line corporate memory.)
Technology Transfer and Multi-Disciplinary Team Collaboration (many authors / one receiver, one author / many receivers, many authors / many receivers, one author / one receiver).
HMC Hardcopy prints images to plotter/printers.
HDE Database Interface relationally manages the HyperAuthor and HyperNavigator modules.
HMC's HyperEdge Environmnet is backed by several notable standards, such as UNIX, X-Windows, OSF/Motif, and similar "point-and-click" interfaces, which menas reduced training costs, and future system compatibility.
The HyperEdge Family of software tools also supports HMC's information management consulting services and Best Practices technology. Contact us today for more details.