Interactive site goes live to provide thousands of photos of G8 Summit host-island Hokkaido

PR Log (Press Release) – Jun 19, 2008 – Datacraft Co., Ltd. recently announced the launch of its English-language View Search Hokkaido Summit Version web tool (http://www.view-hokkaido.jp/summit/), a unique online photo gallery of Hokkaido, the Japanese island set to host this summer’s G8 Summit. This new free service incorporates 20,000 photos taken by local professional photographers and a cutting-edge technology known as ImageCruiser that lets users view and search a huge repository of images. The site is an easy and fun way to browse masses of beautiful photos of Hokkaido and find favorite images and locations.

The Japanese version of View Search Hokkaido was launched before the Summit Version, and has already attracted tens of thousands of hits nationwide since its launch on January 31, 2008, when it started as a field-testing business for the Information Grand Voyage Project conducted by Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.

The website makes it easy for users to access and enjoy local scenery. Its Driving View function simulates the driving route to the place where any photo clicked on was taken, and also shows a series of other landscape images from near the route as if the user is actually driving along it.

ImageCruiser was developed by the View Search Hokkaido Consortium based on research by Dr. Miki Haseyama of Hokkaido University. It extracts color, edge, coloration and other features from images, and determines their optimal allocation according to the degree of similarity measured from these features using a unique algorithm. Its fast-reacting, user-friendly interface makes it simple for users to find the images they want from among an ocean of photos.

During the G8 Summit, the View Search Hokkaido Summit Version will be exhibited in the Hokkaido Information Plaza near the International Media Center in Rusutsu Resort. A company spokesman said, “We hope journalists from all over the world will access the site and enjoy the beautiful natural surroundings of Hokkaido.”

About the Information Grand Voyage Project
Conducted by Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, this project aims to develop common technology (Intelligent Information Access Technology) to search large quantities of differing kinds of data and accurately locate/analyze the information required by the user.

About the View Search Hokkaido Consortium
The consortium consists of Datacraft Co., Ltd., Softfront, The Hokkaido Shimbun Press, Hokkaido Railway Company, Intelligent Link Inc. and Hokkaido University. It launched View Search Hokkaido in January 2008 as a field-testing business for the Information Grand Voyage Project conducted by Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, and has managed the website since then.

About Datacraft
Datacraft is a prominent stock-photo provider headquartered in Sapporo, Japan. With well-known brands including Sozaijiten (a royalty-free digital photo collection), Datacraft has long been the national leader in brick-and-mortar image sales. In recent years, its imagenavi site (http://imagenavi.jp/, an online stock-photo vendor) has also enjoyed significant growth. With strong technological expertise and abundant experience in the world of stock photos, Datacraft provides system integration for the View Search Hokkaido project.



Mr. Sannomiya
vsh-info@view-hokkaido.jp
Datacraft Co., Ltd.
SE Sankyo Bldg.,
1-2 North 7 West 1, Kita-ku
Sapporo
060-0807
Japan