March 31, 2011

What do people actually want to see?

One of the coolest things about SPAR International, I found, was that it draws such a widely diverse group of people, who all happen to have the same basic interests: risk avoidance, efficiency creation, problem-solving with new tools, and a general curiosity about what’s going to be the next technology that changes the way they do their jobs.

Of course, each attendee has a different level of understanding of what’s available in 3D imaging technology; each attendee has a different notion about what could help them accomplish their goals. So each attendee approaches the exhibition hall a little differently, with points of interest and plans of attack that vary widely. 

If I could say there was a somewhat universal interest, it would be in the new ways that software is coming into the market and automating processes that are extremely manual at the moment. There seemed to be a belief that somewhere, some way, there was a piece of software that could solve a heck of a lot of problems: incompatibility, work-intensive modeling, excruciatingly long process times. Did our attendees find what they were looking for? Well, there were definitely a number of companies talking automation. That holy grail of pushing a button and turning a point cloud into a working model? We’re not there yet. Obviously.

And there’s some question as to whether that’s what everyone really wants anymore. As the point clouds get more dense and more accurate, there’s more and more an inclination to just leave that point cloud the way it is. Any attempt at modeling sort of by definition makes it less accurate.

But don’t take my word for what people were interested in at the conference. Here’s a video with a few interviews of diverse attendees talking about just exactly what they were looking for on the exhibition floor.

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