Inventors from several of Qatar’s leading institutions have showcased their creative applications of cutting-edge technology in the 3D Challenge hosted by Texas A&M University at Qatar (Tamuq).
Two competitions - the 3D Printing Competition and Visualisation Development Competition - make up the 3D Challenge, and together the contests are designed to promote innovation through advanced technology, according to a statement.
The competitions are open to innovators from Education City and across Qatar, and enable users to develop and port their applications to visualisation and 3D printing systems. Projects are judged on several criteria, including creativity and innovation, functionality and usefulness, feasibility, and student involvement.
In its ninth year, the Visualisation Development Competition invited researchers to submit proposals to develop research projects using Tamuq’s 3D Immersive Visualisation Facility, which utilises scientific visualisation to create three-dimensional images and graphics that aid in analysing complex numerical representation. This technology helps scientists see data sets in new ways so that they can find patterns or relationships and communicate their data to others. Viewers feel completely immersed in the experience, and all images are displayed in 3D with the use of special goggles.
The first place went to Dr Jeff Cheng-Lung Lee and his collaborators of Qatar Police College for their project 'Virtual Reality and 3D Animation for Crime Scenes Investigation'. The second place went to Dr Bilal Mansoor and his team from Tamuq for their project 'Interactive 3D Virtual Reality Based Class Rooms: Making STEM Education Real'.
The first place in the 2017 3D Printing Competition went to the project 'Custom Design Snorkel Fitting' by Kathleen Bates from Tamuq. Finishing second was the project 'Video Laryngoscopy for Endotracheal Intubation' by Dr Nabil Shallik from Hamad Medical Corporation.
Dr Hassan S Bazzi, associate dean of research at Tamuq, said: “Texas A&M at Qatar is home to some of the best computing, visualisation and printing resources available on the market today. Some of the proposals in this year’s 3D Challenge prompted us to think about new and novel applications of visualisation and printing technologies, and from this, it is clear that Texas A&M at Qatar and its visualisation and printing technology are a valuable resource for Qatar.”
Yasser al-Hamidi, technical lab manager in the Mechanical Engineering Programme, organised this year’s 3D Printing Competition. Dr Othmane Bouhali, director of research computing as well as the TEES Advanced Scientific Computing Centre, organised the Visualisation Competition. Mechanical engineering professor Dr Hamid Parsaei and Dr Michael Aupetit from the Qatar Computing Research Institute served as judges.
