Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/589428
cgw s e p t e m b e r . o c t o b e r 2 0 1 5 5 S P O T L I G H T CG MARKET TO EXCEED $235B BY 2018 The computer graphics industry has been a growth industry since it was established in the late 1970s. It has weathered the storms of recessions and has emerged with renewed vigor and potential, partly due to a big boost from mobile and the move to 4 k, but also from emerging technologies including 3D scanning, 3D printing, augmented reality, and virtual reality. The computer graphics hardware market was worth $105 billion in 2014 and is expected to exceed $129 billion by 2018, with soware growing slightly faster than hardware. The hardware segment of the CG industry has enjoyed steady growth, and even though the overall PC market dropped by 12% over the past year, workstations, monitors, and PC gaming have seen steady to strong growth. The total PC gaming hardware market (which includes aermarket sales and peripherals) is estimated to be worth over $30 billion. New activity in APIs, with developments like DirectX 12, Khronos Vulkan, Google's driver extensions for OpenGL ES, and Apple's Meta in 2015, will contribute to faster, richer, and higher-resolution graphics for everyone. In 2014, the CG soware market was worth $66 billion (not counting services, maintenance, and other aspects) and is expected to grow to $90 billion by 2018 through a combination of end-user soware such as games (which are real-time, high-resolution simulation systems) and con- tent creation soware tools. The soware suppliers (ISVs) have also changed their sales model, moving more services to the cloud. JPR expects traditional segments like CAD/CAM to expand as new design approaches in automotive, aerospace, and architecture are adopted. The visualization market is showing significant growth due to the availability of more powerful and less expensive visualiza- tion technologies. GPU compute employing OpenCL and CUDA is penetrating further into new as well as traditional applications. The demand for programmers, artists, scientists, and designers has picked up, and we're seeing start-ups arrive in emerging and reborn markets such as augmented reality, virtual reality, and casual games. The arrival of new APIs and platforms are also stimulating develop- ment. Firms are actively looking for people who can use and exploit these new programs and their associated hardware accelerators. The soware content creation market has been tough for the market leaders. They're living with a mature market, with little growth but stability among the competitors. However, there are new opportunities emerging as new approaches to content creation become practical, new distribution channels open up, and young generations arrive with a new fascination for 3D. New opportunities are also growing out of mainstream appli- cations for the Web and consumer applications. The social Web remains a strong engine for growth. Social networks are encouraging people to learn new tools, create content for pleasure, and even look for jobs in the field. What used to be a very closed society of experts is now opening up due to the democratization of CG, fueled by Moore's Law and price elasticity due to lower soware costs. Given the trends in dropping costs, and the increasing users and usage of CG tools and hardware, JPR predicts the rate of growth for the CG industry will remain fairly steady for the foreseeable future. Computer graphics is truly a worldwide industry now. TOTAL COMPUTER GRAPHICS MARKET ($B) TOTAL APPLICATIONS CAGR '14—'18: TOTAL HARDWARE CAGR '14—'18: $0 $50 $100 $150 $200 $250 2014 2017 2018 $66.16 $86.73 $90.00 $118.11 $136.66 $145.10 ORGANIC MOTION LAUNCHES REALITYCAPTURE LIVE Organic Motion has unveiled RealityCapture Live, a real-time virtual-reality content creation studio, and is offering a limited number of RealityCapture Live Development Kits for a discounted price of $995. Based on the company's markerless mocap technology, Reality- Capture Live allows people to directly create 3D virtual-world assets without the need to scan, model, or character rig. RealityCapture Live works as a real-time 3D scanner that captures both actors and props on a stage, and immediately streams the content over the Internet into VR worlds. Instead of controlling avatars or virtual characters, the system provides full 3D geometry of subjects, with complete volume and facial scans. Shipping in Q1 2016, the new dev kit includes 14 HD USB3 camer- as with full-image processing capabilities.