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aceMedia - create, communicate, find, consume, re-use
The aim of aceMedia has been to create a framework, combining advances in knowledge, semantics and multimedia processing technologies, to support self-analysing, self-annotating, and self-adapting content.
Impact
Users in the future will access multimedia content using a variety of devices such as mobile phones and set-top-boxes, as well as via broadband cable or wireless to their PC. aceMedia research outcomes will assist users interacting with their multimedia content through innovative search technologies, automated indexing and cataloguing methods, and content adaptation to best match the user's available device and environment. aceMedia technologies will be supported by innovative user interfaces enabling advanced functionality such as intelligent search and retrieval, self-organising content, and self-adapting content to be enjoyed by both professional content providers and end consumers.
Main innovation
The main technological objectives of aceMedia has been to discover and exploit knowledge inherent in multimedia content in order to make content more relevant to the user; to automate annotation at all levels; and to add functionality to ease content creation, transmission, search, access, consumption and re-use.
A key element in realising these objectives in the aceMedia project has been the creation of the concept of the Autonomous Content Entity. An ACE comprises content, plus metadata and an intelligence layer which can adopt autonomous actions on behalf of users. Such a concept is fundamentally challenging to realise since we allow the ACE to be distributed (not all components necessarily exist in the same physical location), and we have to implement a full content value chain and network environment which enables the ACE to be created, transformed, consumed and deleted.
Read more about the ACE Architecture.
Results
Progress in aceMedia has led to development of tools for Knowledge Assisted Analysis. Knowledge Assisted Analysis modules, based on the developed aceMedia multimedia ontology infrastructure, provide the means for automated annotation of image and video content. Additional analysis tools such as scene classification, face/person detection and recognition, as well as ontological text analysis, have been developed and enhanced.
To support content adaptation, aceMedia partners have developed innovative scalable video codec technology, including a scalable metadata codec. Submissions to MPEG standards have been made. Combining these codecs with real-time content adaptation tools and a content delivery platform has been further developed.
System level design has progressed significantly, with the development of the aceMedia architecture, and a working research prototype of the Personal Content Services application framework. Further progress has been made in the application showcase areas of personalisation and intelligent search and retrieval.
More details
- ICT Results feature: Putting pictures into words (16 September 2008)
The technologies developed in the aceMedia project have sparked interest from a range of commercial companies, looking to exploit the ideas in a host of directions, writes the ICT Results. - Video (MPEG, 6.902KB, 352x288)
- aceMedia book (March 2008): Semantic Multimedia and Ontologies - Theory and Application (editors Paola Hobson and Yiannis Kompatsiaris).
- BBC News article: System 'spots multimedia content' (16 November 2006)
- IST Results feature: Metadata labelling for multimedia content (15 November 2006) (PDF, 83KB)
- Flyer (PDF, 895KB)
- Brochure (PDF, 508KB)
- Annual Report 2007 (PDF, 6.501KB)
- Annual Report 2006 (PDF, 579KB)
- Annual Report 2005 (PDF, 7.084KB)
- aceMedia Website
Administrative Details
- aceMedia is supported under contract FP6-001765. The project started on 1 January 2004 and came to an end on 31 December 2007.
List of Participants
- Project Coordinator - Motorola Ltd, UK
- Philips Electronics Nederland, NL
- Queen Mary, University of London, UK
- Fraunhofer FIT, D
- Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, E
- Fratelli Alinari I.D.E.A, I
- Telefónica Investigación y Desarrollo, E
- Dublin City University, IRL
- Centre for Research and Technology - Hellas, EL
- INRIA, F
- France Télécom, F
- Belgavox, B
- University of Koblenz Landau, D
Contact Persons
- Project Coordinator
Events in connection with aceMedia
- SAMT 2007 - The International Conference on Semantics and Digital Media Technologies, Genova, Italy in December 2007. A final aceMedia showcase will be demonstrated.
- CEBIT 2007 - aceMedia was demonstrated at the CeBIT exhibition in Hannover, Germany in March 2007. The PC, mobile and STB demos were shown attracting a lot of interest from professionals and media.
- aceMedia participated with a stand at the IST 2006 Exhibition in Helsinki, 21-23 November 2006: Helping users to manage their Multimedia content effectively and more details.
- SAMT 2006 - The first international conference on Semantics And digital Media Technology (SAMT) focused on narrowing the large disparity between the low-level descriptors and the richness and subjectivity of semantics in user queries and human interpretations of audiovisual media - The Semantic Gap. Held in cooperation with the European Commission DG Information Society, the third day of the conference was dedicated to featuring the launch of the 7th Framework ICT Research programme and keynote talks from EC representatives.
- EWIMT 2005 - The second European Workshop on the Integration of Knowledge, Semantic and Digital Media Technologies, Institution of Electrical Engineers, 30 Nov - 1 Dec 2005, London, UK