My Internet Diary

16.07.1994

I've installed my first WWW server at the Technical University of Darmstadt, department of Physical Chemistry. At this time the University was still called "Technische Hochschule Darmstadt".

The web server application was the original httpd developed by CERN. It was a bit slower and less capable the todays web server, but it was secure and did what it should (serving HTML pages and CGI scripts).

The first pages described the Physical Chemistry department, the scientific areas, and its staff.

01.08.1994

Announced the WWW server at CERN which was at this time the central repository listing all web servers world wide.

Soon, the server was listed on various other portals like Yahoo, FU Berlin, etc.

xx.xx.1995

I started to work with VRML, the Virtual Reality Modelling Language. This was the time when the first specification emerged. After an election on the Internet it was decided to use the OpenInventor file format as a starting point.

As one of the first, I investigated how VRML can be used in chemistry, especially for the 3D representation of molecular structures.

10.-13.04.1995

I attended the The III International World Wide Web Conference in Darmstadt. Here, I gave my first presentation of VRML applications in the chemistry area. This was also the time when the first VRML browser (WebSpace) went public.

xx.xx.1995

I published my first paper on VRML in Chemistry.

03.-06.01.1996

At the Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing '96 on Hawaii I presented VRML in Chemistry3D Molecular Graphics on the World Wide Web (Postscript).

xx.xx.1996

Another presentation of VRML in Chemistry at the Molecular Modelling Workshop.

xx.xx.1996

I've written my first Java applet. A small molecular dynamics program which shows the motions of the atoms in a molecule immediately as they were calculated. This applet is still working.

xx.xx.1997

I started to work at Silicon Graphics, Inc (SGI) as a freelancer. My first task was the creation of a web server for the internal team communication. This was my second web server.

20.01.1997

I finished my Ph.D. thesis at the Technical University of Darmstadt in Physical Chemistry. It is about molecular dynamics simulations of a biomembrane.

xx.xx.1997

I started to work for SGI as a technical marketing specialist in the chemical and pharmaceutical area. One of my goals was the evaluation and deployment of Internet technologies.

04.-07.03.1997

I participated in the GenCrunch project. This was one of the largest WWW events at this time. A bioinformatics server analyzed the whole genome of the yeast cell in just three days. The computational task was performed online, allowing the scientific community to browse through the results as they were generated.

A result of this event was the formation of the bioinformatics company Lion Bioscience.

xx.xx.1997

Started my first public, personal Home-Page on reality.

xx.xx.1997

Based on the experiences collected with the GenCrunch project, I developed my first web based solution, the CrunchServer. The CrunchServer is a web frontend to Turbomol, an ab-initio quantum chemical application, which manages the results of the latter. The system was installed at BASF.

xx.xx.1997

Next, I developed a web interface to a database. The latter, implemented at Bayer, contains properties of chemical substances. Hence, the system was called ProperView. The solution was presented at Achema 97.

02.02.1998

Developed a Perl module for converting PDB (portein databank) files into VRML files.

xx.xx.1999

I moved from marketing to the professional service organization and became a solution architect. In this new role I started to implement a data management solution called CAE-Bench. Later it was renamed to VirtualInsight.

01.02.2001

The first VirtualInsight system was going productive at BMW. It manages the data of the Crash department (approx. 1.5TB per year), analyzes it, and creates reports automatically. In parallel a similar system for the NVH department was installed.

15.02.2001

I registered my first personal Internet domain horstv.de.

01.03.2001

I started to design a toolkit for Application Service Providers (ASP) called VirtualHPC.

Publications

1. - MOLCAD - Computer Aided Visualization and Manipulation of Models in Molecular Science M. Waldherr-Teschner, T. Goetze, W. Heiden, M. Knoblauch, H. Vollhardt, and J. Brickmann in Advances in Scientific Visualization, F.H. Post, A.J.S. Hin, Eds., Springer, Heidelberg 1992, pp. 58 - 67.
2. Interactive Visualization of Molecular Scenarios with MOLCAD/SYBYL J. Brickmann, T. Goetze, W. Heiden, G. Moeckel, S. Reiling, H. Vollhardt, C.-D. Zachmann in Data Visualization in Molecular Science - Tools for Insight and Innovation, Jack E. Bowie, Ed., Addison-Wesley Publishing Company Inc., Reading, Mass., pp. 83 - 97 (1995).
3. Modellierung von biologisch relevanten Molekülsystemen J. Brickmann, T. Gunkel, S.M. Kast, K. Klein, S. Reiling, R. Schmidt, U. Schmitt, H. Vollhardt, K. Wetzel, and C.-D. Zachmann Jahresbericht der Hessischen Hochleistungsrechner 1993.
4. Texture Mapping: A New Tool for Molecular Graphics M. Waldherr-Teschner, Ch. Henn, H. Vollhardt, S. Reiling, and J. Brickmann J. Mol. Graphics 12, 89, (1994).
5. New Man-Machine Communication Strategies in Molecular Modelling J. Brickmann, W. Heiden, H. Vollhardt, and C.-D. Zachmann in Prodeedings of the Twenty-Eighth Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, L. Hunter, B.D. Shriver, Eds., IEEE Computer Society press, Los Alamitos, CA., pp. 273 - 282 (1995).
6. Trends in Molecular Dynamics Simulation Technique J. Brickmann, S.M. Kast, H. Vollhardt, and S. Reiling Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Study Institute "Frontiers of Chemical Dynamics", Antalya, E. Yurtsever (ed.), Series C: Mathematical and Physical Sciences 470, 217 - 253 (1995).
7. Mikroskopische Modellierung und molekulardynamische Simulationen zur Struktur und Dynamik von Materialien und biologischen Systemen J. Brickmann, T. Gunkel, S. Hauptmann, S.M. Kast, K. Klein, R. Marhöfer, M. Müller, S. Reiling, R. Schmidt, U. Schmitt, H. Vollhardt, K. Wetzel, and C.-D. Zachmann Jahresbericht der Hessischen Hochleistungsrechner 1994 (im Druck).
8. Modelling and Simulations: New Tools for the Development of Drugs and Materials J. Brickmann and H. Vollhardt Bilim ve Teknik 329, 29 - 31 (1995)
9. Computer Simulation of Biological Membranes H. Vollhardt, H.J. Bär, M. Sarvestani, and J. Brickmann International Symposium of the Sonderforschungsbereich 199 "Ecophysiology of Plants: Molecules, Membranes and Mechanisms" (Abstracts), pp. 34 - 35 (1995).
10. Virtual Reality Modeling Language in Chemistry H. Vollhardt, C. Henn, G. Moeckel, M. Teschner, and J. Brickmann J. Mol. Graphics 13, 368 - 372 (1995).
11. 3D Molecular Graphics on the World Wide Web H. Vollhardt and J. Brickmann in Proceedings of the Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing '96, L. Hunter, T. E. Klein, Eds., World Scientific Publishing, Signapore, pp. 663 - 673 (1995).
12. GeneCrunch: Experiences on the SGI POWER CHALLANGEarray with Bioionformatics applications R. Schneider, G. Cassari, A. de Daruvar, P. Bremer, M. Schlenkrich, R. Mercille, H. Vollhardt, and C. Sander in Proceedings of the Supercomputing 96 seminar, Mannheim, K. G. Saur Verlag (1996).
13. Virtual Reality on the World Wide Web: a paradigm shift in molecular modeling ? J. Brickmann and H. Vollhardt Trends in Biotechnology 14, 167 - 172 (1996).