| ●Date: November 15 (Eve), 16-18 (3Days), 2016 ●Venue: Shinagawa IntercityHall | (Up&Coming 2017 New Year issue) |
 Tue. Nov. 15 Eve
Wed. Nov. 16 Day1
Thu. Nov. 17 Day2
Fri. Nov. 18 Day3 |
| Day 2 (Nov. 17) The 17th UC-win/Road Conference |  |
New Proposals of a Variety of Design and Utilization of VR from Inside and Outside of Japan
The program in the morning of Design Festival Day2 (Nov.17, 2016) included a special lecture of "the 17th UC-win/Road Conference" and the public final judgment of "the 4th Cloud Programming World Cup (CPWC)" and "the 6th Virtual Design World Cup (VDWC)". The afternoon program included "the 9th International VR Symposium", "the 2nd State of the Art Technologies in Expression Association / Latest Contests Sessions / CRAVA Inc." and the award ceremony of "the 4th CPWC", "the 6th VDWC", and "the 2nd Junior Software Seminar".
| Day2 started with a special lecture by Prof. Yoshiyuki Kawazoe, Professor,
New Industry Creation Hatchery Center, Tohoku University, entitled "Break
the mold – cognitive ability of human and its limit as the design foundation". First, he compared restrictions of the cognitive region of human retina or time resolution of human beings with advancement of science and technology including the present high-resolution technology. Second, he pointed out the danger of various errors latent in those that are considered common sense in school textbooks etc., with some examples such as "The moon is not a satellite of the earth (both are binary stars)" and "Things that are electrically charged and not charged". He then put emphasis on the importance of endeavoring to lead standardization of autonomous driving technology in the world as the whole nation in this globalized age, taking globalization of communications and languages as examples where Japan failed to lead, with excellent Japanese technologies and Japanese language were left unadopted. |
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| ■Prof. Yoshiyuki Kawazoe, Professor, New Industry Creation Hatchery Center, Tohoku University |
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| He further kept on talking about contradiction of common sense in classification of the rainbow's light wavelength and separation of garbage, the preconceived idea that a vehicle does not run smoothly with triangular tires and the actual fact, the common sense that Japan is a country poor in natural resources and the evidence to disprove it, the common sense that iron rusts and the truth, and the background of difficulty in quantum mechanics. Following them, he mentioned the importance of basic theories, formularization, and programming. Finally, he showed a point of view that the problem of nuclear power plants is not confined to the domestic problem. This was lead to his opinion that people should try to see things that are regarded common sense from a different angle, because "a different thing can be seen from a different angle". | |
| Day 2 (Nov. 17) The 9th International VR Symposium | |
The 9th International VR Symposium was organized by Mr. Yoshihiro Kobayashi, PRISM Lab., Arizona State University / the director of FORUM8 AZ.
As an opening speech, Mr. Kobayashi introduced the achievements of World16 in the past, the trajectory of the International VR Symposium, and the results of summer workshop in Osaka. After the speech followed presentations by the World16 researchers. What attracted the attentions in this symposium were an accurate modeling from photograph and its wide utilities in VR, contents using VR for archives and education, and more advanced collaboration with systems.
Mr. Matthew Swarts (Georgia Institute of Technology) demonstrated a projection mapping onto a cube by asynchronous communication from a browser on smartphones to VR applications with the WebSocket. It can be expected to be applied to entertainment and other ways.
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| ■Mr. Yoshihiro Kobayashi, Arizona State University |
■Mr. Matthew Swarts, Georgia Institute of Technology |
Ms. Ruth Ron (Shenkar College of Engineering and Design) introduced her research creating 3D models by generating texture of heat distribution photograph from several photos of a worker sitting on the office chair shot with a camera equipped with thermo sensor. It analyzes comfortable posture from body temperature, and a posture simulation by importing 3D models with texture pasted in the Road is under consideration.
Mr. Dongsoo Choi (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University) explained his research about the method of high-precision photogrammetry that builds out building models by generating point cloud models from image data of inside of ruins and creating the mesh and texture.
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| ■Ms. Ruth Ron, Shenkar College of Engineering and Design |
■Mr. Dongsoo Choi, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University |
The topic presented by Mr. Taro Narahara (New Jersey Institute of Technology) was the collaboration between UC-win/Road and ARDUINO. He explained a physical device using real sensors and motors and the project collaborating VR space in real time by using serial communication via USB cable.
Mr. Marcos Novak (University of California) introduced the method using the shader as a plug-in to convert VR in UC-win/Road to artistic graphics in real time.
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| ■Mr. Taro Narahara, New Jersey Institute of Technology |
■Mr. Marcos Novak, University of California |
Mr. Ron Howker (University of Alberta) introduced his VR project describing the ukiyo-e prints "The Fifty-Three Stations of the Tokaido" presented by Hiroshige Utagawa in 1833. In this project, the scenario function was used and the world of the Fifty-Three Stations was reproduced in VR by using historical and cultural visuals and sounds.
Mr. Amar Bennadji (Robert Gordon University) talked about a program aimed at verifying the possibility of 3D tool use in education. He scanned the ruins of the 250-year-old in Scotland and imported the point clouds to UC-win/Road to reproduce them as VR archives.
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| ■Mr. Ron Howker, University of Alberta | ■Mr. Amar Bennadji, Robert Gordon University |
Mr. Wael Abdelhameed (University of Bahrain) explained the system to display information of energy by each space while walking through the VR building by using the micro simulation. The speech made an impression of VR use potential in CIM.
What was presented with demonstration, video, and sounds shown by Mr. Paolo Fiamma (Universita di Pisa) was the program provided at Universita di Pisa. It is the program to learn the concept of BIM and its actual operation such as data exchange, model use by using Allplan and UC-win/Road.
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| ■Mr. Wael Abdelhameed, University of Bahrain |
■Mr. Paolo Fiamma, Universita di Pisa |
Mr. Sky Lo (University of Victoria) presented an online tool "MULTI‐USER ONLINE DESIGN ENVIRONMENT (MODE)" that users can co-review designs as if it were a game. He explained the method to use the building models created by this tool in UC-win/Road.
Mr. Kostas Terzidis (Harvard University) explained the ways and tools to expand location information application business, and showed the smartphone application to smoothly arrange to meet someone as an example.
Mr. Thomas Tucker (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University) focused on the project to create VR archives of the historical buildings "Smithfield Plantation" in Virginia, the US with the photogrammetric modeling method.
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| ■Mr. Sky Lo, University of Victoria | ■Mr. Kostas Terzidis, Harvard University | ■Mr. Thomas Tucker, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University |
| Day 2 (Nov. 17) | The 2nd State of the Art Technologies in Expression / Latest Contents Sessions / CRAVA Inc. | |
Mr. Satoshi Machida, the president of The Association of State of the Art Technologies in Visual Expression, delivered a lecture about "Efforts to utilize leading-edge expression technologies". As the latest activity of the association, he introduced the case that FORUM8 provided analysis information and VR simulation of the debris avalanche occurred soon after the earthquake in Kumamoto in March, 2016.
"The possibility of VR in game industry" was the theme that Mr. Kurato Kazuki, the president of CRAVA Inc., presented. The speech was about a development service of sales and promotion contents by fusing VR and game, and he showed artistic descriptions by using UC-win/Road functions.
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| ■Mr. Satoshi Machida, the president of The Association of State of the Art Technologies in Visual Expression |
■Mr. Kurato Kazuki, the president of CRAVA Inc. |
| Day 2 (Nov. 17) The 17th UC-win/Road Conference | |
New Proposal of Merging ArcBazar and Voluntary Environmental Impact Assessment
The final program of Day2 after a break, a special lecture was given entitled " ArcBazar x ProjectVR". Its first part was presented by Mr. Imdat As, Founder and CEO of Arcbazar that operates the cloud sourcing site of architecture design competition based in the U.S.A. Firstly, he mentioned some of the services provided by the Company and its link with UC-win/Road. He then referred to the problems about the enormous market of architecture in the U.S.A. and the designers for a large number of projects in there, summarizing the mechanism of providing the clients with solutions for design through "Arcbazar", and types and ratios of projects on Arcbazar. Taking a building project to be constructed in Takanawa, Tokyo, he explained the flow of presenting conditions, applying various design plans based on them, and evaluating them based on information such as technical background of individual designers.
Next, he talked about the outline of the Company's global market, the protocol between traditional clients and designers, its comparison with the protocol for Arcbazar, and FORUM8's involvement in the process of Arcbazar. Finally, he introduced the overview and main points, awarded works etc. of Obama Presidential Center Competition conducted in June 2016 in which FORUM8 also joined, using video. He stated the advantages of using UC-win/Road as a protocol for competition that were bodily felt through the competition, that it enables the users who took part in the competition and designers to understand the design plans in a realistic way in the 3D VR space in advance by themselves.
Mr. Hiroo Kasagi, CEO of NPO Workshop for Sustainable Community gave the second part of the lecture. He explained the outline and significance of the voluntary environmental impact assessment (EIA) he and others promotes, taking example of practices. Then he introduced the outline and main points of the assistance site of the voluntary EIA that FORUM8 is involved in, mentioning examples of facilitation using 3D VR and possibilities in using VR cloud. In addition, he expressed his aim to incorporate environmental consideration (voluntary EIA) into the Arcbasar's mechanism of design competition through cooperation with Arcbasar. While mentioning the example of obscure examination process of the new National Athletic Stadium Plan, he explained the overview of "ProjectVR" that supports decision making of the client for such projects.
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| ■Mr. Imdat As, CEO of Arcbazar | ■Mr. Hiroo Kasagi, CEO of NPO Workshop for Sustainable Community |
| The 4th Cloud Programming World Cup Open Presentation / Award Ceremony |
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Walking space plan in the port of Keelung by Taiwanese team won the World Cup prize
| The Cloud Programming World Cup is the competition of programming skill
for cloud application by the communication system development kit (SDK)
of UC-win/Road and VR-Cloud(R). This time, 18 teams signed up by the deadline
on October 6, and the judgment on cloud was held from 9 to 13. Eight works
were nominated for the final open judgment on November 17. At the judging committee chaired by Associate professor Tomohiro Fukuda from the Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka Univ., juries carefully looked the source cords and evaluated the works. |
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| ■Winners of the 5th VDWC | |
| As a result, "Fire Plugin- Simulation of Influences of Director Action
in Fire Accident" by "fireman" from Shanghai University,
China won the Grand Prix "World Cup prize". It simulates evacuation behaviors of people following evacuation directors at the time of fire in tunnels. While changing situations by parameters, training of evacuation directive can be conducted in order to minimize the victims. Also, each jury awarded the judge's special prize. Click the banner below to check the other nominated works and its details. |
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| The 6th Virtual Design World Cup Open Presentation / Award Ceremony |
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The Proposal Against the Complex Problem About Land Won the World Cup Award
| The theme of this VDWC is the redevelopment plan of the harbor industrial
area called "Fishermans Bend" in Melbourne, Australia. Participants competed for creating VR cities where the areas separated by highway are connected, easy to pass for pedestrians and bikes, and scenery and sustainability are combined. The total of 53 teams from Japan and overseas signed up to the competition, of which 34 teams (6 from Japan and 28 from overseas) passed the preliminary contest. At the final open judgment on November 17, one World Cup award, two Excellence awards, and four Judge's Special awards were selected. |
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| ■Winners of the 3rd CPWC | |
| The work selected as the World Cup award was "Green Wave" by "Dreams" from National University of Kaohsiung in Taiwan. In this work, they simulated the complex problem caused from the land convenience, the disaster prevention, and the environment by using BIM/CIM, VR, and the idea of "Green Wave" inspired by Yarra river which was an important resource for the indigenous Australians. The Excellence Award was given to the work "ORIGIN HILLS" by "Suqreme" from Shibaura Institute of Technology, Japan and "Modern City Farming" by "Old McDonalds Vertical Farm" from The University of Western Sydney, Australia. In addition, the Judge's Special Award was given to four teams. Click the banner below to check the other nominated works and its details. |
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| Junior Software Seminar |  |
A Cheer Went up for the VR Works Created by Students with UC-win/Road
| With the cooperation of The Association of State of the Art Technologies in Visual Expression, FORUM8 held "Junior Software Seminar" for elementary and junior high school students in every long vacation in winter, spring, and summer also in 2016. | |||||||||||
| The task of this seminar is to create a VR work like city or diorama by using the virtual reality software "UC-win/Road". At this award ceremony, five works were awarded to each Gold Prize and Silver Prize among the works created by the seminar participants in 2016. At the 2nd award ceremony on November 17, the presenter Mr. Yuji Abe interviewed winners one by one as last year. VR professionals packed in the venue couldn't help smiling, looking the unique works of children such as a haunted amusement park, a realistic autumn festival, and a large underwater aquarium selected as the Gold Prize. |
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| ■Winners | |||||||||||
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