PLATINE is a synchronous and distributed cooperative platform for remote collaboration. It was developed since 1998 and has been used in European and French projects. PLATINE offers mechanisms for asynchronous and synchronous collaboration and includes components for session preparation, chat, videoconferencing, application sharing, and a shared whiteboard. The presentation demonstrates its use for an e-learning use case, discusses transferring its technology under an open source license, and describes lessons learned from the project including a lack of resources for completion but useful applications in research projects.

1. PLATINE
Synchronous and distributed
cooperative platform for e-working
PLate-forme de Télé-Ingénierie
coopérative synchroNe distribuéE
Véronique Baudin
E-mail: veronique.baudin@laas.fr
LAAS-CNRS PLUME-RELIER

2. Agenda
1. PLATINE description
2. Use case demonstration
3. Technology transfer
– What
– Why
– Which licence
4. Learned lessons
– Unfortunate aspects
– Nice surprises
5. Conclusion
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3. 1. PLATINE description
• Offers a lot of mechanisms that can be used in different
contexts: e-learning, co-design, cooperative work, …..
• Software platform used to support remote collaboration
among users.
• Two main kinds of interactions can be found within
collaborative groups:
– asynchronous collaboration, that does not require the group
members to be present at the same time;
– synchronous collaboration, where remote users work at the same
time.
• PLATINE is mainly devoted to synchronous collaboration.
• Developed since 1998, used and deployed in European
and French projects.
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4. 1. PLATINE description
• 3 kinds of components
– A module for off-line session preparation
– Asynchronous session state display with an “asynchronous” chat
– Synchronous components
• a synchronous session state display
• a multi user visioconference
• a multipoint chat
• an application sharing
• a shared whiteboard
• a session manager
• A PLATINE session is composed of
– an asynchronous phase,
– a synchronous phase.
• Some roles can be defined for one session, and the chairman
attribute can be assigned to some roles.
• The chairman can manage the synchronous phase of a session.
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5. 1. PLATINE description
• Technical characteristics
– Mainly developed using JAVA
– External components:
• VNC for application sharing
• VIC and RAT alternatives for the visioconference tool
– Automatic deployment for session participants
• JAVA WebStart
– Multicast visioconference
• Optional reflector module
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6. 1. PLATINE description
• Requirements
– Hardware:
Pentium (or Centrino) PC minimum 1Ghz, 512 Mbytes RAM
– Input/output multimedia devices:
webcam, microphone, headset, ... correctly configured and
installed. These devices should be recognized by jmstudio
(from jmf2.1.1e)
– Operating Systems:
Windows XP , Fedora , MacOSX
– Java :
• You can use jre 1.4.2_10 version (less than jre1.5.0 version) .
• On your WebStart install, you have to verify the selected jre version
• 1.4.2-11 for the Java Runtime Environment (see item J2SEv1.4.2_11)
• 2.1.1e for the Java Multimedia Framework
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7. 2. Use case demonstration
• Lab@Future (IST project 2002-2005) objectives:
– The experiments realized correspond to learning
cases where students gain knowledge by themselves.
– Teachers are present in the same student session to
answer to students and to remotely help them in case
of difficulty.
– Difficulties appear in handling the experiment specific
tool but also while resolving the problem.
• Experiment from the mechatronics domain using
the FluidSim software
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8. 2. Use case demonstration
• E-learning use case
German FluidSim
expert-teacher
French teacher office French students
LAAS ground floor
Multimedia room
LAAS first floor
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9. 2. Use case demonstration
• Deployed architecture
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10. 2. Use case demonstration
• Specific tools • Generic
– FluidSim (Bremen) communication
– Mixed reality platform components
(Bremen) – Vic, Rat
– VNC server (Bremen)
– Session State Display
– VNC client
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11. 1 Admin interface
to session definition
5
2
6
3
7
4
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12. User Interface
for asynchronous phase
User connection to a
selected session
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13. Specific URL for
sync phase
User Interface for synchronous phase
Synchronous
WhiteBoard Session State
Display
Application
Sharing (VNC)
JVisioConf
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14. 2. Use case demonstration
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15. 3. Technology transfer
• Observations
• PLATINE is a prototype developed in a research lab in order
to demonstrate new transport protocols and new cooperative
protocols
• No human ressources apart from research projects
• We have not found any company to support the industrial
completion of the prototype
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16. 3. Technology transfer
• Which result can be transferred ?
• Some PLATINE components for academic or industrial
partners
• Why this choice ?
• In the fields of network transport protocols and of computer
supported cooperative work (CSCW), the researchers need
communicating components
• PLATINE components can be used, so we decide to share
them easily
• Which licence ?
• CeCILL-B because it « follows the principle of the popular
BSD license and its variants (Apache, X11 or W3C among
others). In exchange for strong citation obligations (in all
software incorporating a program covered by CeCILL-B and
also through a Web site), the author authorizes the reuse of
its software without any other constraints.. » http://
www.cecill.info/index.en.html
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17. 3. Technology transfer
• PLATINE website
• Source code for the whole PLATINE
• Users guides: install and admin and user guidelines
http://www.laas.fr/PLATINE
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18. 3. Technology transfer
• PLATINE on PLUME-Feather (RELIER project)
http://projet-plume.org/en/relier/platine-0 http://projet-plume.org/relier/platine
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19. 4. Learned lessons
• Unfortunate aspects
– Not enough time and human ressources at
LAAS to complete our platform
– No community created
– Not enough time to support external projects
• Tokushima University (Japan): cooperation with a
phd student (2004-2006)
• Lakehead University (Canada): cooperation with
a teacher after the ED-MEDIA Conference 2005
(2005-2006)
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20. 4. Learned lessons
• Nice surprises
– A very good entry point for new research projects:
• 2002-2005: IST Lab@Future using all PLATINE
components + automatic deployment with JavaWebStart
• 2006-2008: IST Sat6 using JVisioConference + SIP
• 2004-2008: IST EuQoS using JVisioConference + QoS
• 2007-2010: ITEA UseNET using Jchat + automatic
deployment for mobile phones (J2ME, OSGi, Android, …..)
– Always available, interesting for a lot of people:
• 892 reads of French RELIER card since 09 2008,
• 299 reads of English card since 04 2009
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21. 5. Conclusion
• PLATINE : an enriching experience from
both technical and human point of view
• A nice way to introduce me in RELIER
project
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22. Tokushima University (Japan) 2004
Questions ?
LIRM Tokyo – Toulouse – 05 2005
Tokushima - 2006
Santa-Catarina University Brasil –
Toulouse 06-2005
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