Am 9.ten Februar 2008 werden im Beverly Wilshire Hotel, Los Angeles, die Science und Technical Achievement Awards verliehen.

Für die Münchener Firma "Flowline" entwickelten Stephan Trojansky (Geschäftsführer FlowLine) sowie Thomas Ganshorn (NOVAimages) und Oliver Pilarski die Software FlowLine.
Diese wurde unter anderen in den Filmen "300", "Harry Potter 5" oder "Poseidon" sehr erfolgreich eingesetzt.

Deswegen ist es auch nicht verwunderlich, dass Sie jetzt von der Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences mit dem begehrten Technical Achievement Award 2007 ausgezeichnet wurden.

Dies gab die Academy am 04. Januar 2008 auf Ihrer offiziellen Internet-Seite bekannt ... "To Stephan Trojansky, Thomas Ganshorn and Oliver Pilarski for the development of the Flowline fluid effects system. Flowline is a flexible system that incorporates highly parallel computation, allowing rapid iteration and resulting in detailed, realistic fluid effects... "

tomverrückt		 Mr. Ganshorn, I’d like to congratulate you on your achievement. How are you feeling now that you and your colleagues have picked up an Oscar for Technical Achievement?

    Ganshorn:I feel very honoured, of course, of receiving this award but I am a bit nervous about the ceremony.
    Apart from that we never imagined that huge an interest from the media.

How did you hear about your win and what were you thinking at that moment?

    Ganshorn:Ganshorn: That day I worked on FlowLine into the early hours of morning and fell into bed exhausted. I think at around 4pm the next day Stephan tried to call me. Unfortunately, he only got my mailbox but a few minutes later I listened to his message and only understood that I had to call him back immediately. When I reached Stephan he told me “I’ve got a letter for you here... "Dear Mr. Thomas Ganshorn, we are proud to inform you ..."...” At first I thought he was having a joke with me but as I got more awake and understood what he had read to me, I couldn’t believe it. A few minutes later I was on my way to FlowLine to make sure that it wasn’t a joke. I wasn’t there two minutes until I was standing in my boss’ office that exact letter in hand. I didn’t stand for long or they would have needed to call an ambulance for me [grins]...

Will you be personally attending the ceremony?

    Ganshorn: This is a once in a lifetime chance, so why wouldn’t I go… I’m sure this will be an incredible experience, one I wouldn’t want to miss.

What’s special about FlowLine that got you the award?

    Ganshorn: Many things but in my opinion, the most important point is the software’s design.
    Other software packages are like a big Black Box. The 3D artist puts the scene in at the top, turns a few wheels on the box and then the scene drops out below with water effects. FlowLine works differently. Here, too, the 3D artist puts in his cosmography but instead of controling the Black Box along a few parameters, the 3D artist has the possibility to assemble the Black Box himself.

That sounds like more work, doesn’t it?

    Ganshorn: That’s correct, it is more work. And if you only wanted to simulate a glass of water it would be contra-productive. But FlowLine wasn’t developed to simulate a few glasses of water, it was created for huge, raging oceans on which ships float, collide with something and are being destroyed. Snakes made of fire or demons made of water, floating oil that ignites and creates huge columns of fire. For things like that you need a lot more control than a sealed Black Box can offer. We can even render “non physical”.
Non-pysical? Isn’t that bad?

    Ganshorn: Non-pysical? Isn’t that bad?

Mr. Ganshorn was interviewed by Nadine Aichinger.