AVS in EC Research Projects


Dr Mikael Jern
Advanced Visual Systems


15 Blokken, DK 3460,
Birkeroed, Denmark
Tel: +45-45999599
E-mail: mikael@avs.dk

ABSTRACT

Since 1997, AVS is involved in several European Commission research projects. This presentation will highlight some of our achievements and scheduled activities in three major ESPRIT projects.

INDEX

The objective of the INDEX (Intelligent Data Extraction) project is to develop a toolset to improve visualisation of large datasets resulting from simulation applications. Three complementary streams of R&D activities are developed, respectively for: data reduction; data compression; and 3D data representation algorithms in scalar and vector fields. The project began in January 1997, and involves more than 13 person years of effort at a cost of 1.8MECU. The partners are AVS, Daimler Benz, Manchester Visualisation Center, University of Stuttgart, Osservatorio Geofisico Sperimentale and British Aerospace. Results from the project will be demonstrated in this session.

NOVICE

The NOVICE (Network Oriented Visualization in a Clinical Environment) project will provide extendible Web-based visualisation tools for medical applications. Emphasis will be on networked technologies, to enable both remote consultations with experts, and easy re-examination by physicians. NOVICE will provide a Web-based Demonstrator and Service Center with parallel visual computing, accessible to all European hospitals, where advanced visualisation tools can be easily reviewed by the end users. 20 man-years' work at a cost of 3.1 MECU will be spent over the next three years. The partners include SGBL (Israel), SiESA (Spain), Rasna Imaging (Italy), Manchester Visualization Center, Foster Findlay (UK) and AVS (Project Coordinator) and several European Hospitals as end users. The overall architecture and the first results from a Web-based Virtual Endoscopy will be demonstrated.

CONTENTS

The objective of our latest ESPRIT project called CONTENTS (Component Technology Exercised on NT Systems) is to develop customizable Application Components for the interactive visual analysis of data on powerful PC platforms. The data of interest are large multivariate data sets (engineering, medical and commercial) generated by simulation- modeling- and measurement running in a distributed and heterogeneous environment, including NT-based Intel parallel processor and suitable UNIX platforms. The components will be based on the emerging industry standard ActiveX/DCOM architecture, and will be properly "bridged" towards CORBA based architectures, for the scope of multi-platform portability and compatibility.

These Interactive Visualization Components will be embedded within electronic documents, allowing the author of a report to distribute the relevant electronic information coupled with an embedded data analysis-viewer "smartdoc", which allows the recipients to interactively examine the data in the same way as the original analyst. Instead of being a dumb document, the "smartdoc" will be a complete data exploration application through which a reader can, via embedded visualisation/analysis components, explore the data underlying the report.

Industry British Aerospace and Unilever together with medical research hospital in Firenze will drive the project on the basis of pragmatic practical user needs. Leading edge industrial AVS, AET (Italy) and INTECS (Italy) will provide their high tech competencies and experiences in data reduction and visualization, image processing and management, multi-platform component design and re-engineering.

This session will include several demonstrations of COM-based visualization components developed with AVS/Express and integrated in an Office97 environment.