The 2008 General Meeting of the 3D Consortium was organized at SGI Hall in Yebisu Garden Place, Tokyo. After the general meeting concluded, lectures and a panel discussion were held. In addition, an exhibition with demonstrations was also held by member companies.
The invitation of the Consortium of 3-D Image Business Promotion to the lectures and the panel discussion continued this year.
There were 64 member companies at the lectures and the panel discussion with a total of 128 people attending.

Mr. Kuniaki Izumi, Secretary General of 3D Consortium

Prior to the opening of the General Meeting, Mr. Kuniaki Izumi, Secretary General of the Consortium, who was newly assigned as the head of the Administration Office expressed gratitude to those attending, and opened the meeting.

The 2008 General Meeting, which was chaired by Mr. Goro Hamagishi (Seiko Epson Corporation), was officially established by confirming an absolute majority with 36 of the 66 members attending and 15 absent members submitting letters of proxy. Then, Mr. Takahisa Ando (Sanyo Electric Company) explained each agenda item, and Mr. Tetsuya Kusuda (NTT Data) made an audit report and then all the agenda items were approved. The agenda items discussed at the general meeting were as follows:

After the general meeting concluded, lectures and a panel discussion were held at the same venue

Abstract:
Recently there has been an enormous increase of interest from the movie industry in 3D, enabled by the growing availability of glasses based 3D movie theatres, where the most influential directors are focusing today on 3D. Philips believes that very soon this content will also find its way to the home. This is enabled by a break-through in 3D display technology without the need for special glasses, as provided by Philips. The technology is initially applied in signage applications, where the power of 3D visualization creates an amazing viewing experience, makes content richer, more exciting, and more entertaining, and thus attracts more viewers.
This presentation stresses the need for a scalable business approach to 3D. For 3D to be attractive for all parties, we must consider the complete end-to-end system and make sure that an interoperable and cost-effective solution is established in the market.
For mainstream adoption it is obvious that we need displays in the market, which provide the 3D experience without the need to wear special glasses, and which use technologies that do not add significant intrinsic cost to the display.
Beyond the display side, however, also the content creation and distribution must be considered We will show that a content format based on 2D_plus_Depth provides a solution, which can serve all display sizes and types. Furthermore, such a format can support – in a backwards-compatible way – distribution mechanisms and applications such as BluRay disk and DVB broadcasting. Finally, the format enables low-cost content creation, as close as possible to existing production and post-production.
We will present the WOWvx format and tools as a leading solution for the 3D end-to-end chain.

Abstract:
In this lecture, the technological trends concerning the 3D visualization products and high-speed displays supported by NVIDIA were explained. Needless to say about real-time shading, consolidation with high accuracy simulation technology on GPU which is 10 or more times faster than CPU was also covered.

After the lecture, Mr. Atsushi Miyazawa (NAMCO BANDAI Games Inc.), leader of the working group explained about the overview of the "3D Stereoscopic Brain Training WG (working group)" which was newly established this year in the 3D Consortium, and encouraged participation by the member companies.

Persons related to broadcasting, academic experts, and the general public with a viewpoint as general consumers were invited in the panel discussion which resulted in an active discussion under the theme, "What the 3D broadcasting contents should be in two or three years from now to foresee expansion of the 3D stereoscopic market in the future."

Theme: "What the 3D broadcasting contents should be in two or three years from now to foresee expansion of the 3D stereoscopic market in the future."
Panelists (Listed according to the order of Japanese alphabets)
* Processor Takashi Kawai (Waseda University)
* Mr. Tetsuya Kawamoto (Chukyo TV Broadcasting Co., Ltd.)
* Mr. Tetsuya Kusuda (NTT Data)
* Mr. Takashi Sekitani (STEREOeYe)
* Koichiro Nagasawa (Nippon BS Broadcasting Corporation)
Coordinator: Mr. Satoshi Machida (Japan SGI)

CyVerse Corp.
* Exhibit and characteristics: "Centaur" - An intelligent camera which adopted a high definition imager and enables generation of stereoscopic images which can be viewed via the Internet.

IceCube Inc.
* Exhibit and characteristics: "3D image production service" - Production of 3D images by 2D/3D conversion.

NAMCO BANDAI Games Inc.
(1) Exhibit and characteristics: "RIDGE RACER7 - Stereoscopic version" - A special version with stereoscopic specifications of "RIDGE RACER7 (RR7)" which is sold as a game for PlayStation 3.
(2) Exhibit and characteristics: "SOULCALIBUR IV - Stereoscopic version" - A special version with stereoscopic specifications of "SOULCALIBUR IV" (scheduled to be sold in 2008), which is a 3D weapon fighting action game.

Netdimension Corporation
* Exhibit and characteristics: "MatrixEngine" - An authoring tool which handles development of 3D multimedia on the Internet (PC) through its implementation.

Nippon BS Broadcasting Corporation
* Exhibit and characteristics: "A 46-inch 3D LCD TV (46-inch, manufactured by HYUNDAI IT)" - Exhibited as a set with a blue-ray player (Panasonic DIGA). A set consisting of an ordinary TV (46-inch) and a DVD player.

NTT DoCoMo, Inc.
* Exhibit and characteristics: "A 3D display on mobile phones" - a 3D display by using movement parallax on mobile phones with 3-4 inch displays.

Philips Electronics Japan, Ltd./Nissho Electronics Corporation
* Exhibit and characteristics: "PHILIPS 3D display 42-inch WOW model" and "a 37-inch 2D monitor" - A 3D display without glasses.

Seiko Epson Corporation
(1) Exhibit and characteristics: "A 2.57-inch XGA 3D display" - A demonstration which displays 3D images with 8 viewpoints on an ultra-high resolution (500 ppi) LCD panel (2.57-inch XGA). 3D images with a superb level have been realized.
(2) Exhibit and characteristics: "A camera system with 4 viewpoints" - Real-time display of 3D images which were shot by 4 cameras on a 3.5-inch VGA 3D display with 4 viewpoints. Communication with highly realistic images is also possible.