How do you draw the line between entertainment and non-entertainment  uses? Who drives the innovation? Does industry get its inspiration from cinema and gaming, or is the entertainment business merely exploiting the technological advances made by the manufacturing industry?

Personally, I was drawn in by the moderator’s first question to the panel: “Why bother with the non-entertainment application of 3d? Isn’t that boring? Isn’t that dumb?”.

The panel session was called:

3D: Beyond entertainment

It was held on May 19, 2011 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre

The conference where the panel was held was called:

Ontario Projection: Advances in 3D

It was held as part of and event run by the Ontario Centres of Excellence (OCE) called:

Discovery 11

The panel discussed the uses of 3D imagery outside the entertainment industry.

These uses include cartography, flight simulation, medical imaging, endoscopy, machine vision and general visual communications.

The moderator was Tom Burns, Director, Post-Production Infrastructure, Technicolor Creative Services

The panel comprised:

Ihor Petelycky, General Manager of Core Technology and Applications, Spatial View 5:12

Michael Page, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Art, Ontario College of Art and Design University 15:07

Dr. Paul Salvini, Chief Technology Officer and Vice President of Canadian Operations, SideFX Software 23:23

Shawn Veltman, Product Manager, ISee3D 27:21

Discussion: 32:54

The TED video below was the one mentioned in the Q & A at the end: