Development of history learning support system: 3D virtual reconstruction and visualization of ancient Japanese architectures

History is a compulsory but difficult subject for students in Japan. The conventional education methods based on descriptions in textbooks have not been effective enough for students to intuitively imagine historic scenes and understand what happened. An ideal environment for students that includes history films or interactive games is now expensive to construct. In this study, we propose an easy method of developing a computer system that integrates rich resources other than textbooks for history education using 3D visualization, augmented reality, and physical models made by 3D printing to enhance the motivation of the students. This paper describes the outline of the proposed system with details of packages that are used for system construction. The authors demonstrate the results of developing this system with many examples. These results show the effectiveness of changing the approach to history education in Japan for the first time.