The MPEG-4 standard and its applications in virtual 3D environments

The Moving Pictures Experts Group (SC11/WG29 of ISO/IEC) is currently developing the MPEG-4 standard aiming at interactive multimedia applications. Its first version was released in early 1999, a second one will follow early 2000. In addition to an increased compression efficiency for storage and transmission applications at a wide range of bit-rates, MPEG-4 will offer advanced content-based functionalities for interactive services, such as the possibility of accessing and manipulating natural or synthetic audiovisual objects in 2D or 3D scene representations. Against this background the paper first outlines the current status of MPEG-4 standardization and then concentrates on an example application if MPEG-4 to interactive services using virtual 3D environments in combination with streaming of real-time data.