A popular feature on FusionBB is this:

http://www.fusionbb.com/forum/showgallery.php?fid/61/

It's basically a "gallery" forum, which is just a standard forum, but with the benefit of having the first image posted in the topic viewable on the topic overview list.

I assume this currently isn't possible with IPB 3?

Well, we already have IP.Gallery, which has an option to display gallery categories in a forum-like table. I think there'd be too much crossover for this to be a worthwhile IP.Board feature I think :) This is something that could be achieved with a hook and some skin edits though :)

Thanks, I'll have a play around.