Shared Whiteboard for the Access Grid

The Access Grid (AG) [1], [2] is a collaborative research environment with potential for distributed data and visualization across networks and platforms. However currently AG is used predominantly for videoconferencing with PowerPoint presentations. To extend the Access Grid beyond simple meeting scenarios and towards true collaborative working, we need to enable more natural methods of user interaction. These include touch-sensitive tablets and electronic whiteboards.

The Project

In a physical meeting there would almost always be a whiteboard to write on and discuss information. We plan to enhance the collaborative capabilities offered by Access Grid with the addition of a shared whiteboard tool. It will support collaborative writing or drawing by sending and receiving the contents of the whiteboard or drawing window to everyone who participates in the Access Grid environment.

A shared whiteboard naturally fits with the Access Grid's capability to support shared applications. The AG's shared application mechanism passes events and data, as required by a particular application, between all the participants in the shared application. This same mechanism can be used to distribute arbitrary data to shared application participants.

There are many open-source shared whiteboard software available such as InkBoard (part of Inkscape) [3], wbd [4], and Coccinella [5]. Initially it seemed logical to integrate one of these to the Access Grid but many projects are either too complex or not actively maintained. Another viable choice is TigerBoardAG which is a shared whiteboard software designed for the Access Grid [6]. However its dependence on an external TigerBoard server and Java could further complicate Access Grid installations.

What we are aiming for is to analyze and extract the best ideas from the available shared whiteboard software and implement them in an easy-to-use streamlined tool for the Access Grid. We will also incorporate rigorous user testing to evaluate and further improve usability.

Current Progress

We have developed a prototype shared whiteboard tool for the Access Grid. It is based on PyWhiteboard, a wxPython-based distributed whiteboard application by Jan Danielsson [7]. It was relatively simple to replace the sockets used for communicating between master and slaves with the Access Grid shared application mechanisms. We have also improved the user interface and added global undo and a rudimentary printing framework to the application. A screenshot of the application is shown in Figure 1. Please note that it is still in early development stages.

Figure 3. Prototype Shared Whiteboard Interface

Downloads

Shared Whiteboard for AG 3:

Linux and OS X source distribution (.agpkg3)
Latest code from SVN repository - coming soon!

Installation

Shared Applications can be installed by the typical AccessGrid Shared Applications installation method:

Download then add the appropriate .agpkg3 to the Venue data store.
Double click (or right click and choose 'Open') the newly uploaded files.

The Shared Application should then be installed.

References

[1] The Access Grid Project @ UQ VisLab
http://www.vislab.uq.edu.au/research/accessgrid/index.html

[2] Access Grid official site
http://www.accessgrid.org/

[3] Inkscape official site
http://www.inkscape.org/

[4] Whiteboard tool home page
http://www-mice.cs.ucl.ac.uk/multimedia/software/wbd/

[5] Coccinella | Jabber client with integrated whiteboard tool
http://thecoccinella.org/

[6] TigerBoardAG home page
http://lbrn.lsu.edu/portal/staticpages/index.php?page=TigerboardAG-Beta

[7] pyWhiteboard home page
http://user.it.uu.se/~jada3673/applications.php

Acknowledgments

Created by Eric LIAO <e.liao at uq.edu.au>
Funding through UQVislab and QCIF.

- Last updated December 20, 2007 -