Sony forms consortium for 3D displays

By Alun Williams

Posted on 4 Mar 2003 at 16:50

Sony and Sanyo are among the Japanese companies that have formed a 3D Consortium. The aim is to help develop I/O devices to support 3D displays and to help improve the development and distribution of 3D content.

Possible areas of development quoted by the new body include the expected CAD and medical applications, but also broadcasting, electronic books and other entertainment forms. The 3D Consortium asserts that - compared to conventional planar (2D) displays - stereographic (3D) displays are capable of realistically presenting a spatial dimension.

The 'steering members' are Sony, Sharp, Sanyo, NTT Data and Itochu, but there are 70 companies in total in the consortium. These cover a range of interests: hardware manufacturers, software vendors, content providers, video production houses and some academic organizations.

Despite the original Japanese bias, the intent is to help develop the 3D industry worldwide. 'In the future, the Consortium will not limit its activities to Japan,' runs an official launch statement, 'but will expand its efforts globally into various fields, and plans to aggressively promote educational activities to encourage the widespread application and expansion of 3D.'

A number of subcommittees are being formed to deal with issues such as defining image formats appropriate to various apps and I/O devices, and developing guidelines for content creation.

The ultimate goal - declared by the consortium - is 'to generate an unprecedented new industry and market for 3D technology'.

Note that the new organisation is separate from the already-existing Web 3D Consortium, which was launched in 1996 with the mission to 'make 3D an essential component of the world wide web'. Those who can read Japanese will be able to find the 3D Consortium at www.3dc.gr.jp.