Makoto Ohigashi

Integration of a 2D legacy GIS, legacy simulations, and legacy databases into a 3D geographic simulation

Legacy application systems have been widely used by user communities, and by individual users. They are currently providing a variety of functions required by system development requirements. For the development of a new 3D system using such legacy systems, we need both (i) the migration of legacy systems into a new 3D system environment, and (ii) interoperations among these systems. This paper proposes a framework for the ad hoc integration of a 2D legacy GIS, legacy simulators, and legacy databases, which are not a priori assumed to be integrated with each other. For this purpose, we first propose a mechanism to migrate a 2D legacy system with its GUI into a 3D environment. This mechanism is based on a special coordinate transformation for both the texture mapping and the event dispatching. It enables us to use a 3D terrain model with a shadow copy of a 2D legacy GIS. As for legacy geographic simulators and legacy databases without any GUI, we provide them with their proxy objects. These proxy objects can interoperate with each other, and also with the shadow copy of a 2D legacy GIS through their slot connections. As a result, our approach enables us to dynamically integrate multiple independent legacy simulators and/or legacy databases with a 2D legacy GIS simply through the composition of their 3D display objects

Spreadsheet-based Framework for Interactive 3D Visualization of Web Resources

We propose a spreadsheet-based visualization framework for end-users to generate and modify multiple 3D visualizations of data-sets from various Web resources. In this paper, first, we provide a 3D component-based access mechanism to Web resources. It allows users to access various Web resources using only 3D visual components interactively. Second, we provide an interactive 3D visualization mechanism. It enables users to construct multiple 3D visualizations of data-sets from various Web resources just by combining 3D visual components. Third, we provide 2D components for communicating between a spreadsheet and 3D components. Users can export necessary functions of 3D components and define synchronization between these components and cells on a spreadsheet. A spreadsheet environment allows us to define relationships among cells, and copy these relationships through a copy and paste manipulation. By using these mechanisms, users can create multiple visualizations in parallel in order to compare different visualization results simultaneously for different visualization parameters just through a users direct manipulation.

Meme media for the knowledge federation over the web and pervasive computing environments

Although Web technologies enabled us to publish and to browse intellectual resources, they do not enable people to reedit and redistribute intellectual resources, including not only documents but also tools and services, published in the Web. Meme media technologies were proposed to solve this problem, and to accelerate the evolution of intellectual resources accumulated over the Web. Meme media technologies will make the Web work as a pervasive computing environment, i.e., an open system of computing resources in which users can dynamically select and interoperate some of these computing resources to perform their jobs satisfying their dynamically changing demands. Federation denotes ad hoc definition and/or execution of interoperation among computing resources that are not a priori assumed to interoperate with each other. We define knowledge federation as federation of computing resources published in the form of documents. This paper reviews and reinterprets meme media technologies from a new view point of knowledge federation over the Web and pervasive computing environments. It focuses on the following four aspects of meme media technologies: (1) media architectures for reediting and redistributing intellectual resources, (2) client-side middleware technologies for application frameworks, (3) view integration technologies for the interoperation and graphical integration of legacy applications, and (4) knowledge federation technologies for pervasive computing environments.

WorldMirror and WorldBottle: Components for Interaction between Multiple Spaces in a 3D Virtual Environment

This paper proposes a new concept and mechanism for the user and content interaction between multiple spaces in a 3D virtual environment. We introduce two types of visual components; aflat, window-like WorldMirror, and a volumetric WorldBottle. These components embed other spaces inside and render them on their surface, so that users can look into the contents of other spaces from their current working one and choose to enter. They also allow content manipulation in embedded spaces from the current space. Users can move an object from an embedded space to the current working space, or drop an object from the current space into an embedded space. In contrast to conventional approaches, the proposed mechanism enables us not only to define a spatial connection between different spaces, but also to define a functional linkage among components in different spaces

3D space framework for the multi-facet accessing of database records

This paper proposes a framework for the construction of a 3D information access space that supports users to intuitively access large amounts of information. To cope with a large set of database records, we need a dynamic method for organizing and accessing records through multiple different views, such as topological, temporal, categorical, hierarchical and alphabetical views. In the proposed information space architecture, each record is visualized together with its related views, called facets. Each facet is provided as a 3D window-like component that displays a relevant information space on its surface and works as an entrance gate to the space. Through facet components, we can catch a glimpse of more detailed or related information spaces. We can also access relevant records by diving into arbitrarily chosen one of these spaces. Users can dynamically edit these multiple views in order to change the navigation and visualization functions by directly selecting and manipulating facet components.

From Visualization to Interactive Animation of Database Records

Different from the other information visualization systems, our system provides a generic framework for developing various different types of information visualization. Its visual object materializes a record as a directly manipulable object in an interactive VR environment. Users can make its copies to reuse in a different VR environment.