W I R E L I N E
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Lighting the way
UK universities have long been a rich spawning ground for technologically
innovative companies.
Wireline
spoke to two university spin-outs – Holoxica and
PhotoSynergy Ltd – about their journeys in turning an idea into a commercial
product and becoming part of the broad and burgeoning domestic upstream
oil and gas supply chain.
I
t was in a basement in Brussels
around 2007 that Javid Khan
first got the idea of creating
three-dimensional (3D) holographic
solutions to help companies present and
verify complex, intricate or large-scale
engineering designs ‘in thin air’. With
a background in microelectronic design
and development engineering, he was
working at the European Commission
at the time, responsible for identifying
high-tech projects for funding. He
saw that 3D was re-emerging as an
applicable technology and realised he
could take it further.
“I wasn’t keen on conventional stereo 3D
viewed through cinema-style glasses,”
he explains, and so he wanted to create
actual moving 3D holographic images.
Unlike physical models, his vision
was to create holographic images
that are full-colour, created
more rapidly from computer-aided
design (CAD) models and
encompassing animation to allow
Javid Khan, of university spin-out company Holoxica,
conceived the idea of creating three-dimensional holographic
solutions to help companies present and verify complex, intricate
or large-scale engineering designs ‘in thin air’. Pictured is
Baker Hughes’ Blue Orca vessel
UNIVERSITY SPIN-OUTS
>
SUPPLY CHAIN
