Shared Desktop: A Collaborative Tool for Sharing 3-D Applications among Different Window Systems

Vol. 9 No. 3 1997 An advanced product development effort undertaken by graphics engineers in the DIGITAL Workstations Group led to the creation of a new software application called Shared Desktop. One project goal was to enable collaboration among users of three-dimensional (3-D) graphics workstations that run either the UNIX or the Windows NT operating system. Another goal was to allow these users to access the high-performance 3-D capabilities of their office workstations from their laptop computers or home-based personal computers (PCs) that run the Windows 95 system and do not have 3-D graphics hardware. This goal necessitated a cross–operating-system application that could efficiently and effectively handle 3-D graphics in real time and share these graphics with machines such as laptop computers and PCs. In this paper, we begin with a discussion of the software currently available for computer collaboration. We then discuss the development of the Shared Desktop application, focusing on the user interface, protocol splitting, screen capture and data handling, and dissimilar frame buffers. We conclude with sections on additional uses and future directions of the Shared Desktop product.