At the start, Imagina was a computer-generated image festival but it has now evolved into becoming a major show for 3D technology targeting firms and local or regional authorities.

The change started in 2007. After having increased the exhibition surface, given a greater opening to international markets, gained the loyalty of the leading 3D industrialists and made record audiences… they have won the challenge. Imagina 2011, which took place in Monaco from the 1st to the 3rd of February, had almost 1,700 visitors coming from over 40 countries. “Imagina, from being a “festival specialised in computer-generated images”, successfully managed to become a real market for 3D technology and innovation in terms of design, simulation and visualisation for decision-making and communication tools,” the organising team claims. This year the emphasis had been put on health and mobile phone 3D. Though these were the two themes that had been highlighted by the show organisers, holography managed to find a place.

It was a time for immersion too. The demonstrations made in the LITE (Light Immersive Transportable Environment) – an immersive room that can be taken apart and transported and is designed to visualise destroyed heritage buildings or projects – enabled visitors to immerse themselves in worlds as different as the recreated great abbey-church of Cluny, a project for which the room had been designed in the first place, the future tramway infrastructure of the Geneva canton or the relief and urban density of the Principality of Monaco.

The firm Immersion, which designed the LITE, also took the opportunity of displaying its Cubtile, an intuitive multifaceted and multipoint touch tool that enables users, who only have to touch it lightly, to comprehend the appearance and the volumes displayed. Other firms exhibited their new products. One of the exhibitors, Bionatics, presented the third version of LandSim3D®, a fast 3D city and landscape modelling solution for design offices and local and regional authorities.

Conferences were important moments during the Imagina show and gave visitors some information about the current state of art and what is at stake for 3D technology in various economic sectors such as industry, architecture and city-planning or entertainment. Larger issues were also raised. For instance the purpose of the conference day organised by SmartSystem, an original organisation that aims at helping the quick development of innovations in the field of creative economy, was to make people understand what 3D and related technologies (virtual reality, immersive web, virtual worlds, augmented reality, relief…) are making possible. Representatives from the firms EON Reality, Dassault Systèmes and Serious Factory were gathered together for a first round-table discussion, at the side of Marie-Hélène Gabriel, the vice-president of SmartSystem’s Strategy & Development Department, to debate the contribution of 3D immersive technologies in terms of management practices (marketing renewal, e-learning, co-creation with customers, open innovation…). Then visitors were given the opportunity to watch demonstrations, made by the 3DLife European excellence network, of works resulting from academic research. On that day two other events had also been planned: a presentation of works that had been carried out in European Living Labs and Fab Labs (the Think Lab of the University of Salford in Great Britain, the LEVIER Living Lab run by the Pôle Images & Réseau, Innovalab-Bilbao and Issy Media from the town of Issy-les-Moulineaux) and a workshop for the closing of the festival, bringing together former winners of the International IntraVerse Awards dedicated to virtual worlds.

by Yaël Landau / Smart System

Credits : Imagina 2011 / Immersion

Translated by Oona Bijasson

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