I saw a new market at a crazy party in Akihabara

The other day, I went to a year-end party in Akihabara. It was really exciting and crazy.

The party was thrown by 3D-GAN (3D-Geometry Application Network), which is an NPO and was established 2 years ago in Akihabara. 3D-GAN's purpose is to share and promote 3D shape data/technology more. Various people were there from various industries.

Look at the above picture. The guy wearing the strange mask is me. The mask is about a character named Mona, which is popular among Internet users in Japan.

　　 ∧＿∧　　／￣￣￣￣￣
　　（　´Д｀）＜　オマエモナー
　　（　　 　 ） 　＼＿＿＿＿＿
　　│ │ │
　　（＿_）＿）

I borrowed the mask from a fellow geek attending the party, who had made the mask. It was really surprising that the mask had a tiny CCD camera on the face and had a LCD(liquid crystal display) inside, so I wouldn't be blind while wearing it.

Akihabara is the only city where we can meet such interesting geeks. Yes, you know, Akihabara is a city for various kinds of geeks, nerds, maniacs, and Otaku.

The people in the party were diverse. They were of various ages, from various industries, and had various interests. The only common interest among them was 3D technology.

They would never have met if it weren't for 3D data.
They would never have met if it weren't for 3D-GAN.
But they met. The encounter was exciting. I believe the encounter will drive a change. The change is about the spread of 3D data and technology.

I remember Mr. Soma, a founder of 3D-GAN, told me that establishing 3D-GAN in Akihabara was significant. He said that there were no cities in the world more unique than Akihabara, and he believed an innovation would occur from a unique city like Akihabara. He chose Akihabara strategically.

By the way, I found a Hisui user at the party(Hisui is a CAD framework I developed). He told me that he was using Hisui to convert obj format file to STL format file. It made me happy to talk to a user of my own product.

He told me that he couldn't find any software which can convert obj format to STL format except Hisui. I was surprised because to develop the function converting obj to STL was really easy. But I know that obj format is used by CG modelers and STL format is used by manufacturers, and there is a deep gulf between them. It seems that they don't exchange any information with each other. So, I guess no vendors have found the need of the conversion. But I could see it in Akihabara.

So, let's meet in Akihabara.