Japanese Friendship Garden Map Project, San Diego

About the Project:

The Japanese Friendship Garden's design is based on centuries-old Japanese techniques adapted to San Diego's climate and flora and seeks to foster a relationship between humans and nature, providing a respite attuned to Japanese simplicity, serenity, and aestheticism. The digital project allows visitors to explore an interactive map upon their arrive to the garden. The map combines panorama photography with videos and animations to give visitors a better understanding of the different cultural elements in the landscape. This information includes everything from how to care for bonsai tree, to ancient Japanese building structures, to the sounds of falling water.

How We Did It

The illustrations were hand drawn by our designer in photoshop. We then captured 360 degree images strategically around the garden and recorded audio/video of the Japanese Friendship Garden staff explaining different facets of Japanese garden design. To pull all of this information together we used a PTGui Viewer plugin, which can be used to publish a 360 degree or fully spherical panorama on a website with embedded media. The plugin enables website visitors to 'look around' in the panorama by clicking and dragging with the mouse. The web page was made using JavaScript and hosted on the museum's server.