Methods and apparatus for integrating external applications into an MPEG-4 scene

A computer-readable medium storing instructions for controlling a computing device to composing a scene, the instructions comprising:

• decoding received first information comprising a binary format scene (BIFS) description stream and at least one coded media stream;
• decoding received second information comprising a part of the BIFS description stream that references an external application having one or more external application objects and a pointer to software associated with the external application, the external application being a non-MPEG-4 application that controls and renders a windowed region within the scene;
• and
• composing an integrated scene comprising one or more decoded media objects from the at least one coded media stream and the one or more external application objects.

A computing device that composes a scene, the computing device comprising:

• a processor;
• a module configured to control the processor to decode received first information comprising a binary format scene (BIFS) description stream and at least one coded media stream;
• a module configured to control the processor to decode received second information comprising a part of the BIFS description stream that references an external application having one or more external application objects and a pointer to software associated with the external application, the external application being a non-MPEG-4 application that controls and renders a windowed region within the scene;
• and
• a module configured to control the processor to compose an integrated scene comprising one or more decoded media objects from the at least one coded media stream and the one or more external application objects.

A system for composing a scene, the computing device comprising:

• a processor;
• means for controlling the processor to decode received first information comprising a binary format scene (BIFS) description stream and at least one coded media stream;
• means for controlling the processor to decode received second information comprising a part of the BIFS description stream that references an external application having one or more external application objects and a pointer to software associated with the external application, the external application being a non-MPEG-4 application that controls, and renders a windowed region within the scene;
• and
• means for controlling the processor to compose an integrated scene comprising one or more decoded media objects from the at least one coded media stream and the one or more external application objects.