NCSA presented Eastman Kodak Co. with the 1996 Industrial Grand Challenge Award in early May at the Eighth Annual Executive Meeting. The award recognizes Kodak for unifying its photo compact disc format with the World Wide Web.
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Left to right: Clark Kurtz, director of Research and Technical Support Services at Kodak; Larry Smarr, director of NCSA; and Terry Lund, leader of the Digital Science team at Kodak. |
A major thrust of NCSA's mission is to help
improve the competitiveness of U.S. industry. The
Industrial Grand Challenge Award, presented annually,
was established by NCSA in 1992 to recognize the
corporation that accomplished a major competitive
breakthrough application as a result of its NCSA
partnership during the previous year. The 1996 award
specifically recognizes the efforts of Terry Lund and
his Digital Science team in Rochester, NY.
Kodak, jointly working with NCSA's Software Development Division, developed technology designed to allow people to zoom in and examine small details-- particularly images transmitted over the Internet. NCSA staff collaborating with Kodak were Stan Guillory, Larry Jackson, Scott Powers, Carl Samos, Briand Sanderson, Rick Vestal, and Judd Weeks.
While people today can view low-resolution images over the World Wide Web, zooming in, enlarging, or cropping these images can be difficult if not impractical. Kodak's Digital Science solution, being made available free over the Internet, offers users a new level of interactivity with many pictures accessible over the Web.
The technology takes advantage of Kodak Photo CDs and the Kodak IMAGE PAC file-format technologies. The format stores pictures at five different quality levels from low- to high-resolution. The technology provides a significant leap in capability over other online image formats that are now in widespread use. Kodak Photo CD technology, implemented with their NCSA partnership, supports full 24-bit color with color management, allowing users to work with photorealistic images. Now users will be able to interactively crop and enlarge pictures, rotate them, and zoom in to see fine details of images available online.
"Through a longstanding relationship, Kodak and NCSA scientists have combined their respective technological strengths in digital science and massively parallel computing to provide Internet users with a more powerful way to access high-quality images and explore them in new ways," said James W. Meyer, Kodak senior vice president, director of Research and Development, and chief technical officer. "The NCSA Industrial Grand Challenge Award confirms our long-held belief at Kodak that technology must be customer focused, delivering novel ways for people to use and enjoy pictures."
"The foundation for this award began 10 years ago when Kodak became our first industrial partner," said John Stevenson, NCSA corporate officer and head of the Industrial Program. "Their researchers have been constant leaders in exploring the benefits of the evolving, leading-edge, high-performance computing and communications technologies. The company's top management commitment, combined with the personal initiative of Terry Lund and his team, have led to this significant competitive advancement."
Kodak is a world leader in developing, manufacturing, and marketing photographic and imaging products.
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NCSA: The National Center for Supercomputing
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access / Summer 1996
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