Metaverse As Visual Database: Tokyo Professor Creates Impressive 3D Image Display In Second Life

I've been sporadically following the copious SL data/visualization prototype work showcased at Archidemo, the blog of Hidenori Watanave, a professor at Tokyo Metropolitan University.  I think this latest project, 3D image database of Oscar Niemeyer on Second Life, is the most noteworthy thus far.  Niemeyer is a legendary Brazilian architect with a long career; Watanave's database displays many of his most famous buildings on a kind of giant lattice work of cubes in Second Life.  When you click on an individual cube, you leap into it, so to speak, providing you a far more immersive rendering of the building than you'd get on a flat 2D screen. It's the kind of thing William Gibson hinted at when he coined the term "cyberspace", but this isn't just a novelty.  It's potentially a very powerful perceptual leap, enabling the ability to see and literally move through vast amounts of information in a single space-- as an individual, or a collaborative group.  Here's a demo video of the database in action. I'd love to see different data sets (places, categories of objects, historical periods, and so on) displayed in a similar way.  Hat tip: Keystone Brouchard, who's similarly impressed. Image credit: Archidemo.blogspot.com.

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[Genevieve Database]

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