Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Current street view
Simulated street view
without exterior signs and
electric p oles
Web-GIS interface for simulating
the street view with radio buttons
to display or hide exterior elements
Fig. 7.
Simulating street view on Shinmachi Street
The changes in building exteriors, the impact of removal of business signs and
billboards, burying electrical cables, and other related changes from proposed
regulations can be also envisioned with landscape simulations in Virtual Kyoto. We
developed a simulator of detailed landscape elements on Shinmachi Street in the
central district of Kyoto (Fig. 7). The local town along the street is one of historical
community called 'Hoko-machi', where a large float called 'Yamahoko (or
Yamaboko)' that parades in the Gion Festival is maintained.
Walking through such a simulated streetscape, users including local residents and
local governmental officers can get a feeling for the possible results of new street
exterior regulations or voluntary actions to improve streetscapes. Considering the fact
that some landscape modification such as removing electric poles are quite costly, and
more importantly that the new regulations are quite controversial among different
stakeholder groups such as developers, local residents and newcomers living in high-
rise apartment houses, it is vital to publicly share the possible results associated with
the landscape regulations for meaningful debate on the future of the city. As part of
web-based Virtual Kyoto, we also developed web-based simulators with buttons to
display or hide each landscape elements in Shinmachi Street. As an environment of
PPGIS (public participating GIS) [14], the web-based system is expected to
encourage public participation in discussions on landscape policy and promote
involvement and commitment from a wide range of public sectors.
