Mr. Izumi, making an overall report.

On July 27, a joint presentation of activities was held by the Services/Contents Section, Technical Section and Safety/Guidelines Section at the Sharp building in Makuhari, Chiba prefecture. In addition, fifteen member companies, including overseas members of the 3D Consortium, participated in the exhibition held with the presentation. After the overall report on the Consortium's activities by Mr. Kuniaki Izumi, associate head of the 3D Consortium, lectures by Mr. Hiroshi Iseki (Tokyo Women's Medical University), Mr. Yoichiro Kawaguchi (the University of Tokyo), and Mr. Makoto Sato (Tokyo Institute of Technology) were held. Mr. Imakita reported on the activities of the Services/Contents Section, Mr. Izumi, on the Technical Section, and Mr. Chiba, on the Safety/Guidelines Section. Our overseas member company, VRx, made a presentation. There were 42 member companies at the joint presentation for a total of 74 people attending.

The 3D Consortium, which had been established for thte creation of new markets by combining hardware, software and contents, celebrated its second year, and the number of members reached 116 companies as of July 31. Three sections of the 3D Consortium held individual study sessions this year, and we exhibited at "NICOGRAPH2004," "Industrial Virtual Reality Expo & Conference IVR 2004," and "GIS Conference 2004," in Japan, and participated in overseas exhibitions including "SID2004 (in Seattle)," and "Asia Culture Forum - VR Culture Forum in Shanghai." Participation in "SIGGRAPH2004 (in Los Angeles)," "Japan Multimedia Festival 2004 in Wakayama," and "IDW (in Niigata)" are scheduled. This year, our activities have been focused on the development of content including experiments for 3D content distribution. Among them, I would like to make a special note that the group of Mr. Asakura, who is our associate member, were awarded a special award at the "NSA2004." Talking about the trends in the 3D market, Sharp will release 3D LCD displays. There are several other movements which may lead to actual businesses. I hope that we will be able to improve the chances.

In case of trouble during medical treatment, real-time decisions shall be made to some degree or another regardless if the treatment is performed by a medical specialist or an intern doctor. By presenting current situations and possible solutions in an easy-to-understand form by using computer-aided technologies, chaos can be avoided, and a vicious circle can be destroyed. One of the major technologies to support such real-time decision making is 3D images for medical diagnosis. 3D images for medical diagnosis means the visualization of medical information. The time has changed from when medical staff had to reconstruct 3D images using 2D images in their brain. Digitalized 3D images for medical diagnoses are subject to objective evaluations, and the diagnosis and treatment can be handled by a team by sharing such information.

I participated in the "Asia Culture Forum - VR Culture Forum in Shanghai." The theme of the forum was to think about virtual reality in terms of culture, environment, art and human beings. Scientists and artists from Asia - Japan, Korea and China were gathered. Mr. Aramaki, Director of "Appleseed," and Mr. Ueki, President of Digital Frontier Inc. were invited as keynote speakers. There was a hidden keyword for the gathering; "Defeat Hollywood." It represents the intention to create images and designs which are comparable to those created in Hollywood. As long as we imitate the creations in the United States, we can never exceed it, so we have to establish an "Asian-type" visual art. If Japan cannot cooperate with other Asian countries to compete with Hollywood, they may develop a close relationship with Hollywood without Japan. In the business world, Japan is in the position of being chased by other Asian countries. Japan is transferring its technologies to Asian countries, and it should also develop further advanced display technologies. To achieve that, we have to apply delicate science technologies for the creation of image content. I hope that Asian countries and Japan will become a force as one by exhibiting the advanced Japanese image technology at the Shanghai Expo in 2010.

Looking at CG works by Mr. Kawaguchi, I feel like touching them, not just looking at them. I have been working on Haptics, which means how to "touch" objects in the environment created by a computer. I am going to introduce it in the first half of my lecture, and talk about our study on how to achieve "virtual human" reactive motions, which means how to achieve interactions in the virtual world.

Reports on Section Activities