Network-based traditional Japanese crafting presentation system using agent and virtual reality technologies

In this paper, we propose a user-friendly three-dimensional CG presentation system for a typical traditional Japanese crafting industry based on agent and virtual reality functions over Japan Gigabit Network (JGN) which is a testbed highspeed backbone network with 2.4Gbps. A large number of traditional Japanese fittings in a local city are redesigned by three-dimensional computer graphics into CAD data and stored in the database servers distributed over JGN. Although each fitting data consists of more than several Mbytes size, user can interactively retrieve the desired fittings and put those into the traditional Japanese interior to design more creative and original houses, hotels and other buildings in realtime. We prototyped a presentation system using VRML and JAVA on networked CG workstations. User can walk through the desired virtual space as a Japanese interior organized by various Japanese traditional fittings and interactively change those fittings by selecting from the database and replacing by simple operations. As a result, we could verify the usefulness of our suggested system not only for Japanese crafting but also for worldwide design industries.