TOKYO -- Art lovers in Tokyo now need travel no further than to Nishi-Shinjuku to immerse themselves in the work of one of the world's greatest artists, following the March 15 opening of the Toshiba Electronic Virtual Gallery in Toshiba Corporation's SMAIS Toshiba Showroom. Located on the 9th floor of Tokyo's landmark Park Tower Building, the virtual gallery uses the latest high-definition and 3-D imaging technologies to showcase the works of Vincent van Gogh and to bring visitors instant access to their favorite paintings.

The Electronic Virtual Gallery is a 3-D island lying in the middle of a deep blue ocean, all created by highly advanced computer graphics and shown on a computer display. It is also a gallery. Visitors "strolling" the island use a 3-D mouse to move forward and backwards, look up and down, and to change the perspective from which they view the art works hung along their route. When visitors find a picture they like, a click of the mouse brings it to a 110-inch high- definition display. All together, 200 of van Gogh's works are available for viewing. Visitors to the gallery are required to make an advance booking at SMAIS Toshiba Visitors' Center (Tel: 03-5322-1048).

Toshiba established the new virtual gallery to study electronic arts and information service systems within the context of the NTT's joint utilization tests of multimedia communication. The gallery is made possible by use of the very latest multimedia technologies: large-capacity asynchronous transmission mode (ATM) data transmission, MPEG-2 real-time compression of moving pictures, and interactive computer graphics. Its operation allows Toshiba to verify network technologies required for practical application of on-demand multimedia services.

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Introducing the Toshiba Electronic Virtual Gallery

Objectives of the experiment

Using the Toshiba Electronic Virtual Gallery

Content of Services

SMAIS Toshiba

Toshiba's Electronic Art Gallery Information Service System