Accessgrid

Accessgrid is a conferencing tool that allows you to see and talk to multiple site across the world. The accessgrid is based on multicasting abaility but can be used by people who do not have multicast access, as long as they have access to a multicast to unicast bridge. These instructions are only for a single machine setup There are two main ways of getting and installing accessgrid.

• You can either download the full accessgrid package, this allows you to connect via a gui. This is a far bulkier program and requires quite a few dependencies. I would advise this for people who will be attending numerous meetings
• You can install just the video and audio client, this is alot smaller and has no dependencies, but has no gui to start up the clients. This also supprts more operating systems

Requirements

• A web cam, is optional as you can still see other people without one (but highly recommended)
• Microphone + speakers, I would recomend using headphones as normal speakers and a mic will cause feedback for all listening sites
• Multicast, or access to multicast bridge
• Access through any firewalls to the internet. The software uses consecutive UDP ports for transmit and recieve

Downloads

• If you are going to install the full pacakage then go to http://www-unix.mcs.anl.gov/fl/research/accessgrid/software/releases/2.1.2/index.html this has the windows and the linux distributions.
• If you are going to install the standalone applications then you need to download VIC
  http://www-mice.cs.ucl.ac.uk/multimedia/software/vic/download.html
  and RAT
  http://www-mice.cs.ucl.ac.uk/multimedia/software/rat/download.html

Installation

For each method follow the installers and take note of the installtion directories of the packaes as these will be needed later if no multicasting is available.

For people using the full package a Distinguished Name (DN) will need to be created and registered, please note this will probably take about 24 hours to complete. If this has not been generated in time for the meeting then you will have to access the system from the command line and not from the gui

Connecting

For the full accessgrid client with multicast start up the Venue Client and put in the password you generated for the DN and click go. This will connect you to the venue server, you will then be able to navigate to the virtual venue your meeting is in.

For those with multicasting enabled but no gui then:

• Navigate to the vic installation dir (/access grid toolkit/bin for gui users)
• run vic ip_address_of venue/port_number_of_video (these can be supplied by node operators or meeting organisers)
• Navigate to the rat installation dir (/access grid toolkit/bin for gui users)
• run rat ip_address_of venue/port_number_of_audio (these can be supplied by node operators or meeting organisers)

For those with no multicasting enabled and no gui then:

• Navigate to the vic installation dir (/access grid toolkit/bin for gui users)
• run vic ip_address_of bridge/port_number_of_video (these can be supplied by bridge creator)
• Navigate to the rat installation dir (/access grid toolkit/bin for gui users)
• run rat ip_address_of bridge/port_number_of_audio (these can be supplied by bridge creator)

Controlling RAT

The RAT is a simple program to control, it shows the list of people currently visible in the virtual venue (VV). Each of the people has a volume control so you can change the volume of an individual site. Their is a volume slide at the top for overall input and output volume.
To transmit check the talk button, if you wich to mute everyone uncheck the listen button

See http://www-mice.cs.ucl.ac.uk/multimedia/software/rat/faq.html if you have problems

Controlling VIC

The VIC window shows all available video steams, pressing 1-4 will give you 1-4 columns of videos.
To transmit your own video, click on Menu. In the new window slect the video device you have from the devices tab, then click on transmit. The faster your network connection the higher your can set the fps, do not set it over 20. When done dismiss this window.

To view other peoples video, click on a feed, this will open the feed in a new window, the size of this window can be controlled by pressing s m or l (small, medium, large) with the window selected.

see http://www-mice.cs.ucl.ac.uk/multimedia/software/vic/faq.html if you have problems

-- RichCawley - 11 Nov 2003