Semantic consistency maintenance in collaborative graphics design systems

Collaborative graphics design systems allow users, spread across different locations, to work together designing common patterns. One key element that, in most cases, is poorly supported in such systems is semantic preservation. To make the real-time collaborative graphics design system more efficient, it is essential that the semantic violation problem be well solved. In this paper we present the semantic maintenance architecture and the classification of semantic preservation. A new approach and related algorithm that can resolve semantic conflict problem efficiently is also proposed. Semantic consistency maintenance helps to promote the collaborative awareness abilities. The architecture and algorithm has been tested in the CoDesign prototype system.