As part of our 2.12 client release, we were delighted to graduate our OpenTok Windows Client SDK out of beta and make it generally available. In addition to being a standard client endpoint for the OpenTok platform, the Windows SDK makes it easier to go beyond regular video chat and create whole new level of collaboration experiences.
Creativity & magic
The creativity of developers never ceases to amaze me and when you provide developers with powerful tools like our Windows Client SDK, magical things happen. A few weeks ago, I was fortunate to speak to the team at Calgary Scientific. Calgary has two major divisions: one in health care called ResolutionMD, and another focusing on cloud collaboration and mobility called PureWeb. Specifically, I spoke to them about their innovative collaboration plugin for the Rhino3D CAD tool, called PureWeb Cast, which has launched in beta today.
The PureWeb Cast plugin allows a designer working on a 3D model to share the rendered model with anyone in the world and collaborate in real-time. The remote participants simply click on a link in their browser and immediately they can see the rendered model in their browser, no downloads or installs needed. They can take control, rotate, zoom and annotate as necessary. Adding audio to the experience is straightforward and the result is a powerful and highly targeted collaboration tool.
Under the hood of the Windows SDK
So how is this all working? Since the OpenTok Windows SDK is a native SDK it is very easy to put together screencasting functionality, see the sample code here. Of course the framebuffer you are “casting” does not need to be the screen of your PC, it can be any framebuffer and therein lies the magic. It can be a 3D model like the Rhino3D example, architectural drawings, or it could be a series of graphical overlays. Under the hood, this framebuffer is encoded into a compressed video stream and sent to the OpenTok cloud. From there it can be sent to any OpenTok client (browser, mobile or desktop), making the collaboration seamless.
Key Benefits of Windows SDK
In addition to making screencasting easy, the OpenTok Windows Client SDK has the following benefits:
- Tighter integration with the operating system and better performance than web apps
- Superior security of a native application
- Easy to deploy in enterprise IT environments
For technical specifications, please review our Windows SDK datasheet.
Want more information?
The OpenTok Windows Client SDK API documentation is available from our developer center here and there is a quick tutorial to get started with basic two-party calls here.
The OpenTok Windows Client SDK allows you to build collaboration applications that are tightly integrated with the underlying Windows operating system and deliver compelling collaboration experiences that streamline productivity. We look forward to seeing what you build for Windows using this SDK.
The post How Calgary Scientific Drives Real-Time Collaboration with the Windows SDK appeared first on TokBox Blog.