Whole Year 2013 Center Grant （Application No.: 2013WYYR20）
Period when you used the grant: 2013/12/12 - 2013/12/12
Research activities: Overview and implications: I used the grant to buy a tablet PC (Surface Pro 2) to display and demonstrate our research results on the Virutal Yamahoko Parade and ukiyo-e image processing. We are working on presenting a traditional Japanese cultural event, namely Yamahoko Parade in Kyoto Gion Festival, using the latest technologies such as 3D CG modeling, motion capture, high-quality sound recording, vibration system, immersive virtual environment, and real-time interaction. This work is one part of the digital museum project, which intends to preserve and present Kyoto city's culture and tradition. We are also dveloping an ukiyo-e rakkan extraction and retrieval system. The proposed system helps the users to extract, binarize, and retrieve rakkan of ukiyo-e images from an ukiyo-e image database. Because this device is able to run execute files that are exported by Vizard, it is expected to be useful for conference presentations and demonstrations. The excellent portability of this deceive allows us to introduce our researches to more researchers all around the world.
Progress and effects in your overall research plan and objectives: The researches on virtual yamahoko parade and digital archives of ukiyo-e are important topics of the Digital Humanities Center for Japanese Arts and Cultures. This program will help us to improve our current research as well as to introduce our research overseas. The research results have been presented at domestic and international conferences on humanities as well as computer science. The research paper on virtual yamahoko parade titled " Revival of a traditional Japanese festival: virtual ato-matsuri across time and space" received " Best Paper Award of the Digital Humanities Special Track" at the International Conference on Culture and Computing 2013.
Advisor: Kozaburo Hachimura ／ Ritsumeikan University