Urban Recovery Archive of Tokyo based on Google Earth

Abstract

Today, the geotechnology is one of the significant fields in the digital earth era. It must change how to record the historical transition of urban recovery process using the cutting edge technologies and spatial information data. This paper demonstrates a trial of making urban recovery archive of Tokyo based on Google Earth as one of the case studies. The digital archive consists of 119 maps/pictures from 1838 to 1997 of some of the important areas in Tokyo (Marunouchi, Otemachi, kyobashi, and Nihonbashi), which present its dramatic historical change including the recovery process from the 1923 Tokyo Earthquake and from the destruction due to the World War II. Using some functions (overlay, timescale, and place mark), it is possible to compare different maps.