Toshikazu Seto

Virtual Kyoto project: digital diorama of the past, present, and future of the historical city of Kyoto

Using the recently developed 3D GIS (Geographic Information System) and related visualisation technologies, we have created a digital diorama of an entire historical city, which can be used to virtually travel through different realistic landscapes at different times in the history. The digital diorama called Virtual Kyoto is the virtual geographic environment of the past, present, and future of the historical urban spaces in Kyoto City by constructing geotemporal-referenced 3D models of cityscape elements at different eras. In order to promote digital humanities studies on the arts and culture of traditional Kyoto, Virtual Kyoto is used as a digital platform for constructing a web-based digital museum interface with geographic data-linkages to numerous historical and cultural digital contents. We also explore the possibility of using Virtual Kyoto as an information environment to discuss the future of the historical city of Kyoto with the effects of city planning activities such as landscape policies or the possible damage due to disasters on historical landscapes.

Simulating the Revival of Ofune-hoko in the Kyoto Gion Festival

The revival of Ofune-hoko, literally a big ship-shaped float, in the Kyoto Gion Festival has been planned for the last few years. Ofune-hoko was destroyed in the fire at the time of Conspiracy of Hamaguri-gomon Gate in 1864. The efforts of the neighborhoods led to the revival of Ofune-hoko, with support from the Kyoto City Government, cooperative firms and some citizen donations. This paper intends to demonstrate how we created a 3D CG model of Ofune-hoko and put it on the Virtual Kyoto in order to simulate the revival of Ofune-hoko on the Virtual Geographic Environment on the Virtual Kyoto.