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VIRTUAL KYOTO: VISUALIZATION OF HISTORICAL CITY 
WITH 4D-GIS, VIRTUAL REALITY AND WEB TECHNOLOGIES 
Y. Takase a+C , K. Yano a , T. Nakaya 3 , Y. Isoda b , T. Kawasumi 3 , K. Matsuoka 3 , T. Seto 3 , D. Kawahara 3+C , 
A. Tsukamoto 3 , M. Inoue 3 and T. Kirimura 3 
takaseyutaka@yahoo.co.jp, (yano@lt., nakaya@lt., isoda-y@apu., kawasumi@fc.) ritsumei.ac.jp 
d Ritsumeikan University, 56-1, Tojiin-kitamachi, Kita-ku, Kyoto, Japan 603-8677 
b Ritsumeikan Asia-Pacific University, 1-1, Jumonjibaru, Beppu-shi, Oita, Japan 874-8577 
c CAD Center Corporation, 2-3-21, Kouraku, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, Japan 112-0004 
KEY WORDS: GIS, City, History, Visualization, Cultural Heritage, Three-dimensional, Lntemet/Web, Virtual Reality 
ABSTRACT: 
Virtual Kyoto is a virtual time-space created on a computer for the purpose of investigating the past, present and future of the 
historical city of Kyoto. Using the cutting-edge technologies in GIS and VR (virtual reality), the authors have been constructed 
Virtual Kyoto as 4D-GIS that comprises a series of 3D-GISs for different eras. The 3D modeling of the city began with the 
present Kyoto, and has gone back to the past eras, including those soon after and before the World War II, the Taisho and Meiji 
eras, pre-modem Edo era and finally back to Heian era when the city of Kyoto was founded in the late 8th century. The aims of 
the creation of Virtual Kyoto include; 1) to archive geo-referenced materials such as current digital maps, old topographic maps, 
cadastral maps, aerial photographs, picture maps, street photographs, landscape paintings, archaeological sites data, and 
historical documents; 2) to create a database of all existing buildings including machiyas (traditional townhouses), modern 
heritage buildings, shrines and temples including historical and cultural heritages; 3) to create VR models of the 
abovementioned buildings; and d) to estimate and simulate the land use and landscape changes over the studied periods using 
aforementioned materials. Virtual Kyoto is an infrastructure to place a variety of digitally archived materials associated with the 
city, and to disseminate varieties of sophisticated styles of culture and art of Kyoto to the world over the Internet. The web-based 
system provides user-friendly interface to explore comprehensive information on culture and art of Kyoto with its historical 
landscapes. Virtual Kyoto will play significant roles in assistance for urban landscape planning of Kyoto as well as sending rich 
information on Kyoto to the world through the Internet. 
1. INTRODUCTION 
Kyoto, an old capital of Japan which was founded more than 
1,200 years ago, and eluded damage from World War II, 
retains a great number of historical architecture such as 
temples, shrines, machiyas (traditional townhouses) and 
modem heritage buildings. 
The research aims at reconstruction and visualization of the 
historical landscapes of Kyoto in different eras, which provides 
Kyoto’s 3D-GIS starting from the present, based on 
automatically generated 3D city model, going back to the past, 
including those soon after and before World War II, Taisho and 
Meiji eras (early 20 th to late 19 th century), Edo era (late 19 th to 
17 th century), and finally up to Heian era (12 th to the end of 8 th 
century). And the research also aims at making Virtual Kyoto 
open to the public through VR and internet (Yano et al., 2006, 
2007). 
Virtual Kyoto has been a part of “Kyoto Art Entertainment 
Innovation Research (2002-2006)” at Ritsumeikan University 
driven by the 21st Century COE (Center of Excellence) 
program funded by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, 
Science and Technology (MEXT), and now handed over to the 
Global COE program (2007-2011) titled “Digital Humanities 
Center for Japanese Cultures and Arts”. 
This paper introduces our Virtual Kyoto and suggests the 
utilization of Virtual Kyoto for Digital Humanities research. 
2. VIRTUAL KYOTO 
Virtual Kyoto is 4D-GIS including time dimension to 
conventional 2D-GIS and 3D VR models. It is capable of 
accommodating various geographical information of different 
eras. This feature has been crucial from the outset of the 
research because the goals of Virtual Kyoto project were to 
represent the history of the city and to reconstruct the city’s 
past urban landscapes. 
In Virtual Kyoto we adopted MAP CUBE* (CAD Center Co., 
Ltd). The data consists of 3D geometry models of buildings 
based on building footprint and height, for the whole city of 
Kyoto (Figure 1). The 3D geometry models are automatically 
generated by extruding building footprint data with air-bome 
laser-profiler data which took height values at an interval of 
less than 2.5m within error of 15cm as illustrated in Figure 2. 
Kyoto, a historical capital of Japan founded in 794 AD, retains 
large number of historical architecture such as temples, shrines, 
machiyas and modem western buildings of the pre-war period. 
Fortunately, the city suffered no serious damages in the World 
War II. Starting from the 3D models of Kyoto at present, more 
and more 3D models of the city in the past have been 
reconstructed, resulting in VR models and associated 
information of Kyoto in different eras. As a consequence, the 
authors have created 4D-GIS (3D-GIS with time dimension) of 
Kyoto.