The aim@shape project will support a specific dissemination to industrial environments through the constitution of an industrial group called the Network Industrial Group (NIG).

The expertise of the NIG participant (the companies) will be used to:

• identify industrial open problems related to shape issues,
• tune the research activities to address industrial needs,
• evaluate the research outcomes.

Members of the NIG will be called upon to act as industrial advisors to support the Managing Board and the General Assembly whenever needed, especially in matters concerning possible industrial exploitation of network results. Consequently, there will be a direct industrial influence on the running of network. The continuous communication among AIM@SHAPE and NIG partners will improve the setup of targeted Research and Development projects, supported at the national or international level, and possibly co-funded by the companies themselves. NIG companies will also play an important role in the development of new curricula for master and PhD students within the network, since they will provide facilities for short stays (the so-called stages in the French or Italian systems). This will offer a twofold advantage: for the students it provides an industrial experience which will help them in their job decision, while for the companies it gives an opportunity for the recruitment of people with the desired skill and know-how. The contacts thus established are expected to form the basis for an efficient exploitation of the research results and are meant to continue even after the official termination of the EU support to the network.

The NIG is also intended to include companies that qualify as SMEs. Thus any exploitation action of the network involving the NIG, such as workshops for industrial users, will have a specific SME component.

In the first project period we have analyzed the partners activities and structured them to identify the different industrial branches that might be interested in participating in the Network Industrial Group (NIG). A NIG kick-off meeting was organized and held in March 2004 where first NIG participant could be acquired. The rest of the year was characterized by individual local activities and planning the next phase of the NIG activities. By the end of January 2005 (Januar 31, 2005) the NIG comprised 12, 14/15 companies stemming from different branches and fields with interests varying from acquisition, styling and design to geographic information systems.

The plan for the second project period was that the NIG partners contribute to the Digital Shape Workbench (DSW) as well. CAD vendors might provide some of their test data to the DSW to be accessible for AIM@SHAPE partners. Some of them could provide physical models to be scanned into the DSW. Concerning the provision of tools through NIG members we were less optimistic because they are the companies’ IPR and typically the basis of their business.

During the third project period we were successful in getting the first test models from NIG partners for the Digital Shape Workbench. Out of the many discussions that took place with industry – users and vendors – we collected more requirements towards usage scenarios and input on semantics. Furthermore, we referred the NIG members to the AIM@SHAPE web portal and the ‘State of the Art Reports’, and provided them with the AIM@SHAPE newsletter to keep them up-to-date about ongoing AIM@SHAPE activities. All the planned workshops, meetings and dissemination activities were carried out, plus some more, except the AIM@SHAPE NIG meeting in fall 2006. We came to the conclusion that one general meeting in 2006 was sufficient. So there was one held in March 2006, and the next one is scheduled for March 22, 2007. For the year 2007, however, there will also be another general NIG meeting in the fall, when the exact statutes and rules of participation for the new AIM@SHAPE association are known, so that the future status of the NIG members with respect to the association can be discussed. NIG members have also gained access to the Digital Shape Workbench. Some of them have already provided models for uploading to the DSW, others are now selecting models to provide. The infrastructure for a NIG working area in the AIM@SHAPE portal has been prepared.

For the last year, we still plan to only expand the NIG moderately for the remaining duration of the AIM@SHAPE project. Most of the plans for the period Jan 2006 – Jun 2007 from the current JPA have been fulfilled. The major open issue of the plan - if we are only considering the year 2006 – is the testing of the ontologies and the search engines by the NIG partners. During the remainder of the project we intend to continue to deepen the following NIG activities:

• Contribution to the Digital Shape Workbench, e.g. with test models either virtual or physical.
• Contribution with usage scenarios and input on semantics.
• Testing of the search engine and contribution of knowledge needs in terms of searching and retrieving shapes and services.

• January 16, 2007 a bilateral meeting with Pininfarina at IMATI
• March 9, 2007 a more general meeting at IMATI
• GPU related workshops by SINTEF
• Cooperation planned on 3D face recognition by UU
• Cooperation planned on 3D reconstruction from 2D images between Rafael and Weizmann
• AIM@SHAPE NIG meeting March 22, 2007
• FunctionalDMU workshop planned for March 15, 2007
• AIM@SHAPE NIG meeting in fall 2007 (to discuss issues of joining the new AIM@SHAPE Association)
• AIM@SHAPE Final NIG meeting November 16, 2007 (IGD- Darmstadt Germany)

The AIM@SHAPE partners will further try to strengthen the exchange of students with industry - this might depend on the organisational form of the involved AIM@SHAPE partners.