HPCN in action: TTNs make the invisible visible

Almere, 23 November 98 Monitoring the heart, building bridges, restoring fainting old movies, repairing knee injuries: what do they have in common? Progress has been made recently in all these areas due to HPCN technology. HPCN involves the usage of computers for the purpose they were designed for originally: to compute. Today's state-of-the-art in computing, goes several orders of magnitudes beyond what is possible with even the newest PC: It involves using many computers - processors - for solving one problem, a technique called parallel processing. To demonstrate this technique is mature enough to be used in many applications in many industrial sectors, the European Commission has formed a network of Technology Transfer Nodes (TTNs) all across Europe managing over 175 different projects that implement HPCN technology in applications affecting day-to-day-life of businesses and consumers. With the TTNs now functioning for over a year, the first results become visible today, for those who look for it. HPCN is like the air we breath: it is everywhere around us, but not visible at first glance.

Today, images of the heart are investigated visually by a cardiologist who decides on the diagnosis and possible treatment. It would be of much help to him when he would have a full three-dimensional picture of the heart available for his diagnosis. With the current technology this is not possible. Clever HPCN based image processing techniques, however, can do the job. To develop and test a system for that, a consortium of companies and universities was put together that defined a project called 3D-Heartview. A Greek supplier of medical equipment, Skoutas is the company that will market the technology. Several hospitals are validating the equipment and the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) provides the link with the basic research done in the area.

A project, indicated by an acronymic name, executed by a consortium of partners with experts (NTUA), technology providers (Skoutas) and users (the hospitals) in constitutes the basic element in the TTN technology transfer programme. The project is funded for 50% by a grant from the Esprit programme from the European Commission.

The 3D-Heartview project is attached to the INNO Technology Transfer Node (TTN). Apart from 3D-Heartview, INNO manages several other projects. The TTN manages the project and tries to make the results as widely available as possible throughout Europe.

To be better equipped for that task, the INNO TTN works together closely with 22 other TTNs scattered all over Europe. This has the advantage that when for instance a Dutch hospital is interested in 3-D views of the heart and wants to know what is happening in that area, it can contact the Dutch TTN located in Amersfoort, the Netherlands to have access to the INNO results.

In total the TTNs managed 175 projects in all kinds of industrial areas. Companies active in the transport sector, in general are not involved in developments in the media sector: they have their own conferences, their own opinion leaders, and their own technical consultants. To support this, the TTNs have organised themselves in industry groups. Each group maintains its own web site, shows project results on conferences and talks to technology experts in that industry. So in our example, the Medical Sector group could decide the 3D-Heartview project results are ready to be shown at the large Medical Fair which is held each year in Germany, or that it would be good to have an article in Virtual Medical Worlds magazine.

The Technology Transfer Network became operational in March 1997. The first projects are now coming in a stage where they deliver demonstrable results. The coming period many will follow. In March 2000 the support from the European Commission will end, leaving behind numerous sophisticated products and services that benefit from HPCN technology. And, although HPCN will be a commodity technology by then, it will be even more invisible as it is today.

Fore more information check in at the Technology Transfer Network (TTN web site.)

Ad Emmen