Operational transformation for orthogonal conflict resolution in real-time collaborative 2d editing systems

  • Authors:
  • Chengzheng Sun;Hongkai Wen;Hongfei Fan

  • Affiliations:
  • Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore;Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore;Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the ACM 2012 conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work
  • Year:
  • 2012

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Abstract

Operational Transformation (OT) is commonly used for conflict resolution in real-time collaborative applications, but none of existing OT techniques is able to solve a special type of conflict - orthogonal conflict, which may occur when concurrent operations are inserting/deleting an arbitrary number of objects in different dimensions of a two-dimensional (2D) workspace, such as spreadsheet documents. This paper is the first to identify and solve the orthogonal conflict problem by extending OT with a new capability of resolving 2D conflicts. Extending OT from one- to two-dimensional conflict resolution is fundamental to the theory and application of OT, and technically challenging as well because 2D orthogonal conflict is different from but intimately related to the one-dimensional positional shifting conflict and necessitates new and integral solutions for multi-dimensional conflicts. In this paper, we present formal definitions of orthogonal conflict, pseudo-code description, design rationale analysis, and correctness verification and complexity analysis of the 2DOT solution.