3D Consortium

SIGGRAPH, which is a world-class computer graphics event (which consisted of academic societies' meetings, conferences and exhibitions) was held for 5 days from July 30 in Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

* Date: July 30 (Sun) - August 3, 2006 (Thu)
* Venue: Boston Convention & Exhibition Center

The 3D Consortium participated for the fourth time in the exhibition in the general category. Six member companies, which were 3D Incorporated, Dimension Technologies, Stereovision Imaging, PrismVision, For3D and Sharp, exhibited at our booth.

Compared to the previous two SIGGRAPH conferences which were organized in Los Angeles, the number of exhibits were slightly less, and it seemed that there were not as many outstanding topics as there were the last few years. (It has been decided that SIGGRAPH will be back again on the West Coast next year, and will be held in San Diego, California from August 5.)
The exhibit which attracted much attention this year was "U-TSU-O-MI" which was presented by the NTTDoCoMo laboratory at the "Emerging Technology" exhibition. The system was presented as a next generation interface between human beings and computers. 3D computer graphics were synthesized with a doll with a built-in robot frame when it was seen through a head-mounted display.
Regarding 3D stereoscopic view systems, "HOLOVIZIO" (http://www.holografika.com/) which was presented at the same exhibition also received much attention. The system consisted of some 60 DLP projectors and a large number of liquid crystal shutter screens. Since the system had a high brightness and resolution, the images presented were very vivid. It was interesting in the way that the system, which is based on the multiple viewpoint system, provided three dimensional information when images were seen from different angles. At this stage, the system was only at a technical presentation level. Individuals from the developer of the system, HOLOGRAPHIKA, came to our booth, and were interested in our activities.

The "Electric Theater" which has been organized as a part of a computer animation festival attracts great attention every year. Winning computer graphics animation works which are selected from those submitted by creators from all over the world are run at a large theater at the venue of SIGGRAPH. It seems that the contest had the largest number of applications in its history, however, animation works and game related images by Japanese creators were unusually few which made us a little worried.
"ONE RAT SHORT" by Mr. Bryan Godwin was selected as the most outstanding work. "458nm" which was created by Mr. Iij Brunck and others was awarded a special prize as a superior work.
Before the presentations of outstanding works, there was an impressive event like an interactive game which included participation by the audience. A reflective plate was given to all in the audience when they entered the theater, and the sensor cameras which were installed in the theater felt the movements of these plates which were reflected on the screen in real time.

As a whole, it is no doubt that SIGGRAPH is a comprehensive event in the field of graphics which is still very active now, however, we had the impression that the atmosphere slowed down probably due to the change of the venue from the West Coast. Since the exhibition will be back again on the West Coast, and the movie industry seems to have a vision for recovery by using 3D, we think that the event should be utilized for gathering information and making presentations about our activities in the future. Following the wind which is created by the movie industry, we expect that 3D as a display method and as output of information as well as a production method (as polygon data) will attract more attention in the future, and the roles of 3D will become more important to the 3D Consortium, too.
* For details of SIGGRAPH 2006, visit http://www.siggraph.org/s2006/