Associating and presenting metadata of digital archive objects in virtual spaces as synchronized multimedia content

The authors propose the idea of associating and presenting metadata (attribute information) of digital archive objects in a virtual space. In the presentation using a virtual space, we introduce two methods. One is called InfoLOD, which dynamically associates and controls metadata (attribute information) with archive objects (2D/3D images) in the 3D space. We propose to control the level of detail (LOD) of attribute information based on orientation and distance. We extend this idea to control the LOD of hierarchically-described metadata (such as XML data) based on distance, orientation, and differentiation. LOD control based on differentiation compares the hierarchical data of spatial objects visible from one's viewpoint in 3D space, and presents the dissimilarities in the objects having similar data. The other method is called passive viewing, and it realizes users to watch and listen automatic presentation of 3D objects and their metadata. Some of our implementations are shown to illustrate our ideas.