By Chua Hian Hou

GERMANY'S Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, the research and development (R&D) giant known for its work on the MP3 digital music format, will set up a S$13.8 million research institute at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU).

This is its first foray into Asia.

Fraunhofer Singapore will employ 20 researchers when it is up and running by June next year, NTU and Fraunhofer announced yesterday.

The number will be increased to 50 by 2013, and possibly even more over time, said the director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics Research, Professor Dieter Fellner.

The team, to comprise local and international hires, will do cutting-edge research in computer graphics and virtual reality.

Some possible research areas he listed included new ways to digitally capture the details for objects of cultural heritage, such as a historical building or artefact, so future generations can experience them even when they no longer exist.

Fraunhofer, which develops commercial applications derived from cutting-edge research, is Europe's biggest research body with an annual research budget of S$3 billion. It has more than 10,000 full-time researchers in its 60 research institutes.

NTU provost Bertil Andersson called the upcoming institute 'a boost to Singapore's innovation ecosystem'.

Professor Andersson, the former chief executive of the European Science Foundation, noted that although researchers in institutions like NTU do come up with new technologies, their focus remains in teaching; Fraunhofer, on the other hand, has spent the last 60 years looking at how to turn its research into solutions for real-world practical problems.

It reportedly collected S$208 million in licence fees in 2005 for its key role in the development of the MP3 format, now the de facto format for digital music sold by websites like Amazon.

Its expertise is just what Singapore needs, said Prof Andersson.

Fraunhofer Singapore will expand upon an existing collaboration, the Centre for Advanced Media Technology (Camtech), set up 11 years ago in NTU. Camtech, with its 12 researchers, will be the nucleus for the new institute.

In 2004, Camtech researchers developed a 3-D model of the Nicoll Highway dig site, which the Ministry of Manpower used during investigations into the tunnel collapse that year.

Using the model, workers interviewed were able to retrace their actions up to the collapse; their accounts were subsequently woven into an animation clip played during the court hearing, said Camtech director Karl Wolfgang Mueller-Wittig.

chuahh@sph.com.sg

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