During our recent workshop in London on which we focused on understanding user requirements, stakeholders had the chance to contribute their vision on opportunities and risks for researchers creating complex 3D datasets. In particular, attendees shared their vision into the future for the following 10 years during a focus group session.
From being able to easily generate 3D datasets with smartphones, to crowdsourcing and automatically generating 3D datasets of our everyday environment, there is a clear indication that the use of 3D datasets for everyday life and for research will only increase.
Also envisaged were the availability of more storage, better printing technologies and ways to automate metadata generation for 3D datasets.
It was also acknowledge that 3D, as other types of data, also run the risk of becoming obsolete if other types of data supersede their use.
There was also the opportunity to identify areas of interest which any 3D data service should address. Three primary categories emerge as fundamental – Discovery, Re-use, and Public Engagement. All other concerns are associated with these major areas.
Clearly, there is an implicit connection between the interest on enabling discovery and re-use of the data. Re-use has two distinctive interpretations – for research, and for derivative works. Connected to this, is the usability and workflows required to produce and ingest the data into such infrastructure. These areas are also linked to the research functionalities that such platforms will provide, but emphasise deposition workflows which streamline the processes of creating metadata. Instead research functionalities are envisaged as a set of analytical tools available for researchers to enquiry, manipulate and visualise the data. Content creation is a catch-all category for those stakeholders that wish to create derived content for any category of media.
Compliance is a category that has distinctive perspectives – compliance with any licensing or copyright restrictions, compliance with mandated deposition requirements, compliance with insurance terms etc. – and thus straddles the major categorical interests. Public Engagement concerns intersect with education and accessibility and this graphic has incorporated the impact of the datasets into public engagement category for simplicity. Although it is acknowledged that impact is more broader than the general public and include other stakeholders.
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