A digital library for 3D models of landmark buildings has started a trial run, the Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Science and Technology announced yesterday.
The Taiwan Digital Asset Library, a collaborative project between the two ministries, aims to collect virtual models of cultural assets that can be used for audiovisual creation, Minister of Culture Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君) said.
It has collected 100 digital models, including of the Kikumoto Department Store (菊元百貨) and of the demolished China Plaza (中華商場), which lined the train tracks on Zhonghua Road in Taipei’s Ximending area (西門町) until 1992, she said.
Kikumoto was the first Japanese-built department store in Taiwan, she said, adding that local creators are encouraged to make good use of the models to tell more stories about Taiwan.
Fort San Domingo (紅毛城) in New Taipei City’s Tamsui District (淡水), the West Gate Red House (西門紅樓) in Taipei and the Siluo Bridge (西螺大橋) in Yunlin County are among 26 existing buildings that have been made into 3D models, the culture ministry said.
The models of China Plaza are scheduled to be used by the Public Television Service to produce a drama series based on Wu Ming-yi’s (吳明益) novel The Magician on the Bridge (天橋上的魔術師), it said.
Filmmaker Kent Chang (張永昌), who is working on a film adaptation of the comic book Scrolls of a Northern City (北城百畫帖, Pei Cheng Pai Hua Tieh) by AKRU, otherwise known as Shen Ying-chieh (沈穎杰), said he is using models of Kikumoto to recreate 1930s Taipei.
The former department store on Boai Road has been listed as a historic building and is owned by the Cathay Financial Group, culture ministry Information Technology Division Deputy Director Chen Ying-fang (陳瑩芳) said, adding that only part of its original interior remains.
Moonshine Animations, which was commissioned to produce the digital models, collects between 1,500 and 2,000 pictures for a structure before making its model, company chief executive Lin Chia-chi (林家齊) said.
Using graphic processing units offered by the National Center for High-performance Computing, the firm needs only about five hours to process the images — an activity that used to take a week, Lin said.
Besides recreating old buildings, the models would help Taiwanese artists “take their space in the world’s virtual dimension,” Minister of Science and Technology Chen Liang-gee (陳良基) said.
The library is open for non-commercial use under the global Creative Commons license, while its licensing for commercial use is to be directed by the yet-to-be-established “cultural content promotion institute” (文化內容策進院), Cheng said, calling on lawmakers to support the institute’s establishment.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS