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fly-through of the 3D city viewing detailed models of cultural 
heritage including temples, shrines, castles and modem 
heritage buildings, with associated information. It also 
provides walk-through of detailed streets and sites with 
associated information. 
The authors have created detailed models of the buildings and 
streets along Shijo Street that visitors can enjoy walk-through 
and even enter the Minami-za theater. A reconstruction of 
Shijo Street in 1930s has been also created. They also can 
enjoy walk-through and fly-through of Heian-kyo. Actually the 
visitors to the site can enjoy Kyoto in different eras switching 
one and another just by cricking buttons on monitor screens 
(Figure 16, Figure 17). 
Figure 16. Virtual Kyoto on the internet 
(left: fly-through of Kyoto at present, right: walk-through of 
Heian-kyo) 
Figure 17. Walk-through in Shijo Street 
(upper: at present, lower: in 1930s) 
6. CONCLUSION 
The research will continue to reconstruct the historical city of 
Kyoto starting from the present going back to the past while 
making more varieties of digital contents which constitute 
urban landscapes of Kyoto at different eras. At the final phase 
of the research, the authors intend to employ Virtual Kyoto as a 
platform to integrate a large collection of digital archives of 
arts and cultures in Kyoto. We expect that Virtual Kyoto will 
be a base for a newly launched research project, “Digital 
Humanities Center for Japanese Arts and Cultures” at 
Ritsumeikan University. 
The growth of the web-based 4D-GIS of Virtual Kyoto will 
form a new base for museology (museum studies). We can put 
various digital contents on our 4D-GIS. The system would 
provide user-friendly interface to explore historical materials of 
arts and entertainments in the geographical context of Kyoto. 
This system also will play significant roles in the assistance for 
urban landscape planning of Kyoto. Now in Kyoto we have 
serious issues concerning historical landscape conservation. 
Virtual Kyoto will support greatly making important decisions 
regarding those issues through clearly contextualizing the 
historical settings of Kyoto. 
References from Journals: 
Yano, K., Isoda, Y., Nakaya, T., Kawasumi, T., Matsuoka, K., 
Takase, Y., Kawahara, D., Kawahara, N., Inoue, M., 
Tsukamoto, A. and Kirimura, T., 2006. Creating virtual time- 
space of Kyoto. E-journal GEO, 0(0), pp. 12-21. 
References from Books: 
Yano, K., Nakaya, T. and Isoda, Y. eds., 2007. Virtual Kyoto. 
Nakanishiya. 
References from Other Literature: 
Takase, Y., Sho, N., Sone, A. and Shimiya, K., 2003. 
Automatic Generation of 3-D City Models and Related 
Applications, International Workshop on Visualization and 
Animation of Reality-based 3D Models, CD-ROM, Tarasp- 
Vulpera, Switzerland. 
Takase, Y., Sone, A., Hatanaka T. and Shiroki, M., 2004. A 
Development of 3D Urban Information System on Web, 
International Workshop on Processing and Visualization using 
High-Resolution Imagery, CD-ROM, Pitsanulok, Thailand, 
2004. 
References from websites: 
Virtual Kyoto by Ritsumeikan University. 
http://www.geo.lt.ritsumei.ac.jp/webgis/ritscoe.html 
CAD CENTER Corporation. 
http://www.cadcenter.co.jp 
Acknowledgements 
The authors’ gratitude goes the city of Kyoto, and NPO 
Machiya-saisei-kenkyukai, who allowed us to use Machiya 
Surveys results, as well as to Shochiku Co., Ltd., who allowed 
us to use design drawings of Minami-za theater. All brand 
names and product names are trademarks or registered 
trademarks of their respective companies. 
The project has also received financial support from the 21st 
century COE program (Kyoto Art Entertainment Innovation 
Research), the Global COE program (Digital Humanities 
Center for Japanese Cultures and Arts) and the Academic 
Frontier Project (Disaster Mitigation of Urban Cultural 
Heritage) by MEXT.