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The Geometric Modelling and Pattern Recognition (GMPR) Group at Sheffield Hallam University (SHU) has developed and patented internationally-known line projection technologies for fast 3D scan, reconstruction and recognition. Three types of impact can be identified: (i) through our patents, we have licensed to companies in Europe and the USA; (ii) these technologies are being transferred to Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) across Europe, through the European funded MARWIN and ADMOS projects; and (iii) social and cultural impacts are evidenced by the 3D scanning of representative items from the Museums Sheffield Metalwork Collection which have been made publicly available on the web, and through the `Man of Steel' community project where a landmark sculpture will form a gateway to South Yorkshire and the Sheffield City Region.
UCL's pioneering use of 3D body surface scanning and national anthropometric surveys has had impact in the fashion industry and healthcare. In 2008, a UCL spinout, Sizemic, was founded to sell clothing size charts and fit mannequins based on the UK survey data, helping manufacturers and retailers improve the fit of their clothing, and reduce their product development times and costs. Sizemic now has 10 employees and a turnover of £1m. The research also led to other national sizing surveys, including in Germany (2008/9), Thailand (2009/10) and Mexico (2010), with results used for product development. In 2009, UCL built a prototype 3D-healthcare system for GPs and established a company, ShapeDynamics, to support the platform. The software is being tested at a private healthcare practice in London. Another UCL spinout, Bodymetrics, has commercialised body scanners for use as a clothes-fitting aid in stores.
Research at the University of Cambridge Department of Engineering on computer vision tracking led to the creation of Extra Reality Limited in 2010, which was subsequently acquired by a new company called Zappar Limited in May 2011. Zappar employs 17 staff and had revenue of GBP612k in the financial year 2012/13, an increase of 35% on the previous year.
Over 50 different brands have used Zappar's augmented reality application across more than 300 offerings in over 17 countries to deliver entertainment-based marketing interactions from 2011 to 2013. [text removed for publication] Examples of partners include Disney, Warner Brothers and Marvel. Zappar has changed attitudes in the media sector by showing that "augmented reality is finally ready for prime time" (President, Creative Strategies Inc, Time Online, 2012).
Research at the University of Cambridge Department of Engineering (DoEng) since 1997 created methods for reconstructing a three-dimensional (3D) model of an object from a single two-dimensional photograph. Metail, a company founded in 2008, sponsored further research at the DoEng and commercialised the results in an online fashion retailing application. Metail enables customers to select an item of clothing and see how they would look wearing it from a variety of angles, having entered just one photograph of themselves and a few basic body measurements. Metail attracted over GBP3.5M investment. Its application is used by Shop Direct, Tesco, Warehouse, Zalando and Dafiti. Sales data shows that the Metail application increases the propensity of customers to buy and reduces the proportion of goods returned.
Imaging speed is of critical importance in most Magnetic Resonance (MR) imaging applications. King's College London (KCL) researchers have developed spatiotemporal undersamplings, or "k-t" methods, for three-dimensional (3D) imaging and corresponding image reconstruction methods that have increased the speed of imaging significantly, so that particular scans are now 5-7 fold faster. This has directly impacted the experience of the patient whose overall examination time has been reduced from more than 1 hour to less than 30 minutes depending on the application. The technology has been patented and has been implemented by Philips Healthcare, one of the three major manufacturers of MR equipment. A clinical solution platform for 3D MR cardiac perfusion and quantitative flow imaging, based on the technology developed at KCL, has also been launched by the Swiss company, GyroTools LLC.
Over the last 15 years the Medical Applications Group (MAG) has engaged in applied research into the use of product design techniques and technologies in medical procedures. Their work has directly led to better, safer, faster, more accurate and less intrusive surgical procedures. The group has worked with surgeons at NHS hospitals all over the UK to deliver well over 2,000 medical models for surgical use during the period. A number of hospitals have adopted MAG's techniques, meaning that the Group's research has improved the dignity, comfort and quality of life of around two and a half thousand people since 2008 whilst saving the UK tax payer many thousands of pounds.
[Throughout this template, references to underpinning research are numbered 1-6; sources to corroborate are numbered 7-15]
This case study describes the innovative 3D Head and Neck learning tool and its impact on teaching in both academic and clinical settings. Since its inception, the 3D Head and Neck project has developed an innovative and rigorous workflow and a learning tool which has had immediate impact on education and training within the NHS and academic sectors in Scotland, directly benefitting dentists, doctors, nurses, surgeons and the full range of allied health professionals underpinning high quality, safe clinical care. This innovative learning technology continues to be vigorously adopted within Scotland and the research methodology developed has led to significant follow-on research.
A collaborative research project between the Division of Imaging Sciences and Biomedical Engineering, King's College London (KCL) and Philips Healthcare has devised methods to register (i.e. align or match) pre-operative 3D computed tomography (CT) images to intraoperative 2D X-ray images, resulting in more accurate and robust registration/alignment measures. The measures can be applied directly to images from standard X-ray machines, allowing for rapid translation to guide surgical procedures and radiotherapy. These measures (or close variants) are used routinely in commercial products by Accuray, Philips Healthcare and Cydar Ltd (KCL spinout), benefitting the care of hundreds of patients worldwide, every day.
Data-to-text utilises Natural Language Generation (NLG) technology that allows computer systems to generate narrative summaries of complex data sets. These can be used by experts, professional and managers to better, and quickly, understand the information contained within large and complex data sets. The technology has been developed since 2000 by Prof Reiter and Dr Sripada at the University of Aberdeen, supported by several EPSRC grants. The Impact from the research has two dimensions.
As economic impact, a spinout company, Data2Text (www.data2text.com), was created in late 2009 to commercialise the research. As of May 2013, Data2Text had 14 employees. Much of Data2Text's work is collaborative with another UK company, Arria NLG (www.arria.com), which as of May 2013 had about 25 employees, most of whom were involved in collaborative projects with Data2Text.
As impact on practitioners and professional services, case studies have been developed in the oil & gas sector, in weather forecasting, and in healthcare, where NLG provides tools to rapidly develop narrative reports to facilitate planning and decision making, introducing benefits in terms of improved access to information and resultant cost and/or time savings. In addition the research led to the creation of simplenlg (http://simplenlg.googlecode.com/), an open-source software package which performs some basic natural language generation tasks. The simplenlg package is used by several companies, including Agfa, Nuance and Siemens as well as Data2Text and Arria NLG.
danceroom Spectroscopy (dS) is a cutting-edge, interactive public engagement project that allows people to literally step into an interactive molecular dynamics simulation. It has its origins in fundamental research carried out to understand ultrafast chemical dynamics in liquids. On a large scale, dS impact has arisen from its deployment in premier cultural settings in the UK and internationally, eg the London 2012 Olympics, London's Barbican Arts Centre, Ars Electronica (Austria), ZKM (Germany), and the World Science Festival (New York City). Statistics indicate well over 60,000 people have so far experienced dS, with audiences spanning ages from 3 to 73, and attracting those with a variety of interests including science, technology, art and education. Within the cultural and media sectors, dS has received several awards and substantial press attention, all of which has proven beneficial to several non-academic collaborators and partner institutions. The substantial momentum and opportunities available from dS are also being commercially exploited through a spin-out company called Interactive Scientific Ltd.