Art is a mirror that reflects the culture of a country. Thus, for travelers, visiting art museums is an important activity that can even become the sole purpose of the trip.

Japan, as host country for the 2020 Olympics, has become a popular destination with a rapid increase in the number of incoming visitors. Still, however, we have not introduced the appeal of Japanese art widely enough, so only 16% of visitors experience art during their stay in Japan. To familiarize international visitors with Japan’s fascinating art and bring even greater satisfaction to their travels in Japan, we launched the IJC Museum project focusing on art in Japan.

The project began with an architect’s design for a real museum. Creating a “3D museum in the cloud” involved actual building engineering in full scale and texture, capturing the functionality of exhibition spaces.

To reproduce artwork by seven leading Japanese artists in 3D virtual space, sculptures were digitalized using a 3D scanner, enhanced with super high-precision texture data captured through high-resolution photography. 2D artworks can be magnified, allowing visitors to view greater detail than with human vision. The virtual museum shows movies of the artists at work or speaking about their work, so visitors can experience art appreciation only available with digitalized exhibition.

WebGL enables overwhelming 3D reproduction. Visitors can move freely inside the museum and see artworks in 360-degree panorama, just like being there. Photography can be prohibited in most museums in Japan, but here, visitors can freely take photographs of any work or post them on social networks.Since the virtual museum shows movies of artists at work or talking about their work, visitors can enjoy digital art appreciation.If you think only real art is fun, visit the “Art Trip” room to find really cool Japanese art museums. It’s an art guide for visitors to Japan.