en and how these problems will be corrected? Does the supplier provide a test-center that you can call when you are trying to get your application working? This Page Intentionally Left Blank GLOSSARY OF TERMS 0 )...9- A way to visually describe an image using height, width and depth components SO that the object appears to have physical depth in relation to its surroundings. 3-D modeling is the process of defining the shape and related characteristics of objects that can later be rendered in 3-D form. The ITUT's H.263 coding and compression standard specifies a common intermediate format to provide resolutions that are four times greater than that of CIF. Support of 4CIF in H.263 enables the standard to compete with higher bit-rate coding schemes such as MPEG. 4CIF specifies 576 non-interlaced luminance lines, that each contain 704 pixels. Support of 4CIF in H.263 is optional. 4CIF is also referred to as Super CIF, which was defined in Annex IV of H.261 in 1992. 16CIF As is true with 4CIF, the ITU-T's H.263 standard specifies, but does not mandate, support of 16 CIF, a picture resolution that is composed of 1152 non- interlaced luminance lines, that each contain 1408 pixels. At this resolution, H.263 can provide resolutions about twice as good as NTSC television. A/D conversion Analog to digital conversion. A/D converters accept a series of analog voltages and describe them via a series of discrete binary-encoded values that approximate the original signal. This process is known as digitizing or sampling. D-to-A converters reverse the process. absorption loss The attenuation of an optical signal within a transmission system, specified as dB/km. Video Communication: the Whole Picture access A method of reaching a carrier or a network. In the world of wide area networking, access channels (which may be copper, microwave, fiber) carry a subscriber to a carrier's point of presence (POP). In the world of local area networking access methods are used to mediate the use of a shared bus. access method The technique and p