webmaster@horstv.de Last update: 14-08-2010
Success Stories
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 first pages described the Physical Chemistry department, the scientific areas, and its staff.
The web server application was the original httpd developed by CERN.
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.
nn-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.
04-1995 I attended 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.
nn-1995 My first paper on VRML in Chemistry got published.
01-1996 At the Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing '96 on Hawaii I presented VRML in Chemistry3D Molecular Graphics on the World Wide Web (Postscript version).
nn-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.
nn-1997 I started to work for 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.
01-1997 Finished my Ph.D. thesis at the Technical University of Darmstadt in Physical Chemistry. It is about molecular dynamics simulations of a biomembrane.
nn-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.
The office was located in Basel, Switzerland.
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.
nn-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.
nn-1997 Next, I developed a web interface for 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.
02-1998 Developed a Perl module for converting PDB (portein databank) files into VRML files.
nn-1999 I moved from marketing to the professional service organization and became a solution architect. In this new role I started to design and implement a data management solution called CAE-Bench.
02-2001 The first CAE-Bench 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.
03-2001 Registered my first personal Internet domain horstv.de.
... and stopped counting the number of web server I've created and deployed.
Publications
1992 - 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.
1995 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).
1993 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.
1994 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).
1995 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).
1995 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).
1994 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).
1995 Modelling and Simulations: New Tools for the Development of Drugs and Materials
J. Brickmann and H. Vollhardt
Bilim ve Teknik 329, 29 - 31 (1995)
1995 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).
1995 Virtual Reality Modeling Language in Chemistry
H. Vollhardt, C. Henn, G. Moeckel, M. Teschner, and J. Brickmann
J. Mol. Graphics 13, 368 - 372 (1995).
1995 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).
1996 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).
1996 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).
Quotes
Brian W. Kernighan and Rob Pike on debugging in "The Practice of Programming" As personal choice, we tend not to use debuggers beyond getting a stack trace or the value of a variable or two. One reason is that it is easy to get lost in details of complicated data structures and control flow; we find stepping through a program less productive than thinking harder and adding output statements and self-checking code at critical places. Clicking over statements takes longer than scanning the output of judiciously-placed displays. It takes less time to decide where to put print statements than to single-step to the critical section of code, even assuming we know where that is. More important, debugging statements stay with the program; debugging sessions are transient.
Capture regularity with data, irregularity with code. (Brian W. Kernighan)
Example isn't another way to teach; it's the only way. (Albert Einstein)
War is terrorism by the rich. (Sir Peter Ustinov)
Die Herrschaft der Dummen ist unüberwindlich, weil es so viele sind und ihre Stimmen genauso zählen. (Albert Einstein)
Respekt vor dem lieben Gott muss man haben - auch wenn es keinen gibt. (Albert Einstein)
Zynismus ist die Kunst, die Dinge so zu sehen, wie sie sind, und nicht, wie sie sein sollten. (Oscar Wilde)
One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them,
one ring to bring them all, and in darkness bind them. (J.R.R. Tolkien)
Des Waldes Dunkel zieht mich an.
Doch muss zu meinem Wort ich steh'n
und Meilen geh'n
bevor ich schlafen kann. (Robert Frost)
Des will mer net in de' Kobb enoi,
wie kann en Mensch nur nett aus Frankfort soi. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)
Only after the last tree has been cut down
Only after the last river has been poisoned
Only after the last fish has been caught
Only then will you find you cannot eat money (Cree prophecy)
Gewalt ist die letzte Zuflucht des Unfähigen.
[Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.] (Isaac Asimov)
Der wohl praktischste und dramatischste Sieg der Wissenschaft über die Religion ereignete sich im 17. Jahrhundert, als die ersten Kirchen Blitzableiter bekommen haben. (Isaac Asimov)
Der Neid ist die aufrichtigste Form der Annerkennung. (Wilhelm Bush)
Parents of young, organic life forms are warned that towels can be harmful if swallowed in large quantities. (Douglas Adams)
FridaV