About Access Grid Video Conferencing System

Introduction

Collaboration among institutions geographically distributed around the globe is becoming more and more popular not only because it is cost effective, but also because it is time efficient. There are currently 240 Access Grid nodes listed in this global node listing, across 26 different countries. Access Grid was developed by the Futures Group within Argonne National Laboratory in 1998 as a response to some traditional H.320/H.323 videoconferencing weakness in handling group-to-group collaboration among large numbers of sites and its lack of emphasis or limited support on advanced data sharing.

Access Grid

Group-to-group interactions are different from and more complex than desktop-to-desktop tools, which focus on individual PC communication. Large-scale scientific and technical collaborations often involve multiple teams,geographically distributed, working together. The Access Grid project aims at exploring and supporting these sophisticated requirements and functions.

Access Grid (AG - outside link) provides a very rich collaboration environment through the use of multiple large-format displays, multiple-camera capture environemts and the integration of advanced interaction and visualization technologies. Meeting in a Virtual Venue space at real time, AG relies heavily on IP-multicast as its transport and utilizes high-bandwith Internet2 to provide large numbers of sites with high-quality video, audio, human interaction and data sharing.

The Access Grid can be used for:

• large-scale distributed meetings
• collaborative teamwork sessions
• seminars
• lectures
• tutorials and training

Having every site see and share all video, audio and multimedia information provides participants the experience like a face-to-face meeting in a virtual room in cyberspace.

Additional Information

• UA Access Grid Specifications
• inSORS Demostration Video
• Related Conferencing & Streaming Technologies

Scheduling and Contact Information

For more information or to schedule an Access Grid meeting, please contact Access Grid support