InterDraw - An Online, Interactive, Collaborative Art Program

Babic, Kristopher T

Etd

InterDraw - An Online, Interactive, Collaborative Art Program

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InterDraw is an art program that facilitates the artistic collaboration of multiple users. The goal of this collaboration is the creation of one unique computer image that represents a combination of the ideas and images provided by each of the users. InterDraw extends the already collaborative nature of the World Wide Web through the use of the Java programming language, which provides InterDraw with its cross-platform capabilities. Previously, collaborative art-like programs have been developed for specific operating systems or environments. This limitation prohibits any collaboration with users from other operating systems or environments. InterDraw breaks this limitation by using the power of Java to provide program access from any computer with an Internet connection and a Java enabled browser. The InterDraw clients collaborate by transforming objects drawn by a user into compressed binary strings that are then transported over the Internet to a server application. This server maintains a database of artist contributions and updates all other InterDraw clients collaborating on the same image. These binary strings provide a reliable transmission format that allows the drawn objects to be recreated by the InterDraw clients. Through user testing, InterDraw has been shown to provide an effective and entertaining forum for the creation of collaborative, dynamic images.

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