MindSetter Session Recording File (.MSR) Specification
	        (for MindRender (TM) Products)
        	(c) Themekit Systems Ltd., 1999

This information is given freely by Themekit Systems Ltd and may be used
to support the MSR data files for third party applications.

An MSR file contains recorded, off-line generated, or hand edited information pertaining to view position, orientation and head-mounted display (HMD) orientation. The session recording/playback facility in MindSetter and MindViewer was designed to enable the replay of user immersive virtual reality sessions and also to allow 3rd party generation or import of view path information.

Each MSR file can contain more than one section. Each section consists of a set or subset of starting parameters (view position, orientation and HMD orientation - this set shall be referred to as the view information) followed by multiple interpolation events each consisting of an end time and the view information which shall be interpolated by that end time. In this way, the system can record and playback user navigation sessions in accurate realtime independently of the frame-rate of the recording or replaying machine.

Note that the view information is normally selective and that only information which has changed or should change is specified.
Note that events should be entered in a section in time sequential order.

There are four event types in current use: SECTION, ENDSECTION, SETVIEW and INTVIEW.
Each event in the MSR file contains a time stamp which if the start of each event line text:

<time stamp> = HH:MM:SS.hh
where HH are hours, MM minutes, SS seconds and hh hundredths of a second.

This time stamp is relative to the time set when each section start occurs.

For example,
00:00:00.00 SECTION
is a start section event which sets the relative time to be zero so that subsequent events in the section are relative to zero.
01:02:03.04 ENDSECTION
is a stop section event which completes the playback at 1 hour, 2 minutes, 3.04 seconds after the start of the section (provided that the corresponding SECTION event set the time to zero).

<view information> = <view info flags> [<view position>] [<view orientation>] [<hmd orientation>]
The view info flags is currently a 3-bit value with the LSB, bit-0 indicating the presence of view position info, bit-1 indicating the presence of view orientation info, and bit-2 indicating the presence of hmd orientation information.

For example,
00:00:00.00 SETVIEW 7   10 20 30   0 1 2   3 4 5
specifies a SETVIEW event at time zero. The view info flags are set to 7 indicating all bits set and hence the view position is set to x=20, y=20, z=20, the view orientation is set to x=0, y=1, z=2 and the hmd orientation is set to x=3, y=4, z=5.
00:00:10.00 SETVIEW 3   10 20 30   0 1 2
specifies a SETVIEW event at time 10 seconds. The view info flags are set to 3 indicating that all but the hmd information is present. So view position is set to {10,20,30} and view orientation is set to {0,1,2}
00:00:20.00 SETVIEW 1   10 20 30
specifies a SETVIEW event at time 20 seconds. The view info flags are set to 1 indicating that only the view position is set. So view position is set to {10,20,30}

The final event type is INTVIEW which is used to smoothly interpolate the view information irrespective of the frame rate of the recording or replay machine. The INTVIEW timestamp indicates the time at which the interpolation will complete and the view information will reach the values specified.
For example,
00:00:10.00 INTVIEW 1   100 0 -5.5
specifies that the view information should be interpolated to have only the view position set to x=100, y=0, z=5.5 when the time is 10 seconds.
00:01:00.00 INTVIEW 2   0 720 0
specifies that the view information should be interpolated to have only the view orientation set to x=0, y=720, z=0 when the time is 1 minute. This would cause the view orientation to spin around the y-axis twice in one minute.

Here is an example MSR file containing 1 section:
00:00:00.00 SECTION
00:00:00.00 SETVIEW 7    0 0 0   0 0 0   0 0 0
00:01:00.00 INTVIEW 1    0 100 0
00:01:00.00 ENDSECTION
This specifies a single section containing a single interpolation moving the view position from {0,0,0} to {0,100,0} in one minute.

Another example:
00:00:00.00 SECTION
00:00:00.00 SETVIEW 7    0 0 0   0 0 0   0 0 0
00:01:00.00 INTVIEW 1    0 100 0
00:01:00.00 ENDSECTION
00:00:00.00 SECTION
00:00:00.00 SETVIEW 7    0 0 0   0 0 0   0 0 0
00:01:00.00 INTVIEW 2    0 90 0
00:02:00.00 INTVIEW 2    0 0 0
00:02:00.00 ENDSECTION
This specifies a 2 section recording. The first section is identical to the previous example. The second section resets the time stamp to zero so that events within the second section are still relative to the time when the second section started. The second section simply interpolates the view orientation to y=90 in one minute, then returns the view orientation to y=0 by the second minute.

End of document.