Prime prospects. (editor's note).(computer graphics industry analysis)(Editorial)

When economic climates are favorable, business planners often use market forecasts mererly to support strategic decisions they've already made. When conditions are chaotic, they may turn to them for something more.

Of course, there's little doubt about which environment those of us in the computer graphics industry are facing. So to help developers and users chart a course during these turbulent times, we asked a couple of the leading analysts in the digital content creation (DCC) and 3D computer graphics markets--Jon Peddie, president of Jon Peddle Research, and Samatha Staples, principal of Acacia Research Group--to share their views about the current state of affairs and the prospects on the horizon.

Peddie: While the larger industries supported by DCC tools--film, broadcast, gaming, advertising, and the like--continue to remain strong, the DCC market will grow just 3 percent in 2003. This will be due not only to the continuing economic decline, but also to the recent price-cutting, and hence lower profit margins, associated with DCC software--including tools for 3D modeling and animation, digital video editing and compositing, and graphics and imaging editing.

In terms of opportunities, companies should look to improve the DCC production workflow. This would simply not mean improving the management of the assets through the production process. (Many companies are still breaking their picks trying to mine that particular opportunity.) Rather, what's needed is an integrated system so that everyone involved with a project could work together simultaneously and interactively. Indeed, most content creation occurs in silos, independent of the next phase. For example, once a 3D animation is completed, it is usually ...