CHANGELOG

Changelog

Development progress and improvements in Create GBM

Legend
NEWnew feature or pageFIXbug or defect resolvedIMPROVEenhancement to an existing feature
01MONTH

August 2026

R8 (2026).08.23FIXIMPROVE
The timeline now shows new series as bars, and volumes as a red line
  • • Blue bars count how many new series first appeared that year. A three-volume set is one series. The red line counts the volumes themselves. A note under the chart now states the scale of that line against the bars, and the year of each peak.
  • • The downward bars count new digital platform openings that year, not books put online.
  • • The door figures (2,860 and the rest) remain location records. A city history in many volumes is still one item there. The unit is now written small under each number.
The main survey’s unconfirmed list has been opened and checked
  • • Items whose access without registration was unconfirmed have now been opened. Those that opened are no longer marked unconfirmed. Two that need a National Diet Library account stay marked as having conditions. The list of those items is no longer on the page.
  • • Two entrances were pointed at pages that no longer open, or that needed a current address. The working page is now the one shown.
  • • Hakodate splits its city history between ADEAC and its own portal. Both doors are kept as complementary, not as a double count.
  • • The addenda and the overseas records remain unverified. That limit is still stated on the page.
Find Municipal Histories is now on the homepage
  • • The Start Inquiry block on the homepage now has a Local history archives row. The card opens the nationwide location survey.
  • • The rooms named on that block are now five, matching the rooms on Start an Inquiry.
R8 (2026).08.22NEWFIXIMPROVE
Special exhibition: “Why Were Municipal and Regional Histories Compiled?”
  • • A timeline special exhibition now sits at the very bottom of “Find Municipal Histories and Local Materials”. Slide the fixed frame left or right and only the centred year (Western and Japanese calendar), its counts, and the events of that year appear enlarged in the card above — like peering through a large magnifying glass.
  • • Two series of numbers: the year the original history was compiled or printed (bars rising above the axis) and the year a digital archive opened (bars hanging below). Of 2,860 records, the 731 with a known year, plus 42 Edo gazetteers (773 in all), and the 89 archives with a known opening year are counted; records whose year could not be read sit in no bar at all, and the frame says so.
  • • Every event is sourced: the 1889 municipal system (71,314 towns and villages merged into 15,859), the abolition of the counties, the Shōwa and Heisei mergers, the Meiji centennial, the opening of the NDL digital library. Municipal counts are the Ministry of Internal Affairs’ published figures. The busiest printing year is 1923 — county gazetteers compiled all at once, just before the counties disappeared.
  • • The survey itself was audited again: all 191 ADEAC institutions from the survey’s own seed list were matched against the ledger, folding five miscounted archives into the addendum (now 69 entries).
  • • The timeline now sits in a frame the same size as the overseas room. Play is on from the start; pressing play now starts the years even if they had sat still, and they begin to advance from the return of political power once the frame is on screen, and after a two-second hold at the last Reiwa year they return to the start of the Edo period and continue from there, again and again. A year with one note holds for two seconds; a year with several shows each note for one second, so three notes take three. Double-speed is twice that again. The note pane keeps the height of the longest single note, so the reel does not jump. Play, pause and double-speed sit at the top right, with the marks centred in the circles so they read as a control you can press. The centre marker sits on that year’s column. Auto-play now stops only when the frame sits on the year’s centre, and the note appears then — not when the year first enters the frame. Edo-period years carry era names the same way Meiji and Taishō already did — 1814 reads as Bunka 11. Events and gazetteers use different marks and colours — a tall gold diamond above a fuchsia circle when both sit on the same year — placed below the year so they do not sit on the bars. Of the modern gazetteers, the Kōkoku Chishi, the Tōkyō-shi Shikō, and the Land Survey Department’s 1:50,000 topographic maps (nationwide survey complete in 1924) each carry a short note. No later city history matched the scale of the Tōkyō-shi Shikō. The title now says municipal and regional histories, so Edo gazetteers sit inside the same question, and the second line closes it with a question mark. The subtitle now asks when they were compiled, and when they were made public. Event and gazetteer titles sit one step larger than the notes. A faint portrait now follows the year — the shogun of that year, and after the return of political power the emperor — with the name at the upper right. Faces sit to the right, clear of the title, the year, and the notes. The year’s counts sit just above the timeline, originals above digital. The year rail is white so the years and bars stay easy to read, and the portrait does not show through. The Shōwa years now use an earlier official portrait that can be shown. The Emperor Emeritus carries the source credit under the name, and the credit says the photo was adapted.
Special exhibition: 32 Edo-period gazetteers and the Meiji Constitution added
  • • Thirty-two Edo-period gazetteers — the forerunners of municipal histories — now stand on the timeline at the year their originals were completed: Kurokawa Dōyū’s Yōshū Fushi (1686), Kaibara Ekiken’s Chikuzen no Kuni Shoku Fudoki (1709), the shogunate’s first official gazetteer Gokinai-shi (1736), the Shoheizaka Academy’s Shinpen Musashi Fudoki-ko (1830), and Awa-shi (1815), which the Tokushima domain built by ordering every village in its territory to report in. Domains and the shogunate were not the only compilers: the Shuri court’s Ryūkyū-koku Yuraiki (1713), a country doctor’s forty-year Harima Kagami (1762), a castle-town merchant’s 120-volume Nanroshi (1815), and a village priest’s Shinano Kishōroku (1834) stand beside them. Only those digitally published today are included.
  • • The Meiji Constitution (1889) and the prefectural and county systems (1890) were added as events. 1889 is also the year the municipal system took effect — the shape of the modern state and the shape of the town changed in the same year. Counties were created in 1890, abolished by the 1921 act, and 1923 is the single busiest year for county gazetteers (27). The three now read as one thread. The first and second consolidations of the prefectures (1871, 1876) stand as events, and the year the prefectural system took effect (1899) now stands apart from the year it was promulgated. The years the county system took effect, prefecture by prefecture, now stand as events with the prefecture names of that year. Its abolition is split across the failed 1906 bill, the 1921 act, the 1923 repeal, and the 1926 closing of the county offices. The 1956 law of the Showa mergers stands on its own year; the Heisei mergers now also show the 1995 residents’ initiative, the 2005 successor act, and the 2009 council report. The Showa centennial stands in 2026, as the Meiji centennial already stood in 1968. The year the Land Survey Department was placed under the Army General Staff (1888) and the year the Geographical Survey Institute took its present name (1960) stand as the two moments when accurate national mapping became the work of one office. The official topographic maps that office issued for the whole country stand as a gazetteer in 1924. The notes do not claim that municipal histories were compiled because of them.
  • • Eight Edo-period events were added. The years the shogunate ordered provincial maps and village registers, the year kokugaku reread the old records of the land, the year Ino’s coastal atlas laid every shore and place-name on one sheet, the year the black ships appeared off Uraga, and 1867 — no gazetteer could be placed on that year, so Tokugawa Yoshinobu’s return of political power stands as the event. Each with a source. The notes do not claim that municipal histories were compiled because of them.
  • • The counting rule is now explicit: where a paper original exists and has also been digitally published, both the printing year and the opening year are counted, each in its own bar. Re-examined under this rule, archives with a known opening year rose from 43 to 89, and records carrying both years from 2 to 18. The median gap between printing and digital opening is 47 years; the longest is 104.
  • • Two misreadings were closed while widening the extraction: a printing year inside a sentence about digitisation is no longer taken as an opening year, and the survey’s own working dates are no longer counted as the archive’s. Four such contaminations were found and removed.
Start an Inquiry map: pins for Edo-period gazetteers
  • • The thirty-two Edo-period gazetteers added to the timeline now appear on the map as well. The old provinces have no modern municipality, so each is anchored at its historical centre — the castle town of the domain that compiled it: Odawara for the Sagami gazetteer, Aizu-Wakamatsu for Aizu, Nagoya for Owari, Hagi for Chōshū, Tokushima for Awa-shi, Kagoshima for Sangoku Meishō Zue. The shogunate’s Shinpen Musashi Fudoki-ko sits at Edo, today’s Chiyoda; the Shuri court’s Ryūkyū-koku Yuraiki at Naha. Anchors now reach 34 prefectures, from Hokkaido to Okinawa.
  • • Where no castle town applies, the present prefectural capital is used (Kai at Kofu, Chikuzen at Fukuoka). Gokinai-shi spans five provinces and has no single centre, so it is placed at Osaka as a stated convenience. Every coordinate is drawn from the e-Stat population centroids already in the repository; none were newly created.
  • • Tapping a pin shows the year of completion and the compiler. As addendum entries they keep the dashed outline and the “unverified” mark.
Fix: two pins on the same spot no longer hide each other
  • • The gazetteer anchors sit on prefectural capitals and castle towns — exactly where the survey’s own pins cluster. Both are drawn from the same population-centroid table, so the coordinates match to the digit, and the pin drawn last swallowed every tap. Tapping Utsunomiya returned only Shimotsuke Kokushi; the Tochigi entries beneath it were unreachable.
  • • One place on the map is one place. Where the two coincide, either pin now opens a single popup holding both, separated by a rule and marked by source. The counts are never added together — the survey’s 1,383 and the addendum stay apart.
Exhaustive re-sweep: addenda 101 → 233, overseas territories 22 → 79
  • • The survey had run on a single axis — municipality name × municipal history — so we swept again from other angles. Counting the museum-collection platform’s member institutions revealed the pattern: of the 45 already recorded, Hokkaido had 10 and Iwate 6, while Osaka, Aichi, Kanagawa, Shizuoka, Nagano, Mie, Shiga, Nara, Shimane, Kagawa, Kochi, Kumamoto and Oita had none at all. The list had been worked through in prefecture-code order and had simply stopped partway west. Not an oversight — an unfinished count. 84 more now reach 33 prefectures.
  • • Takeshima (Okinoshima, Shimane) appeared nowhere in the 1,383 records or the addenda. Its materials are published not by the town but by the prefecture and the state, so searching for the town returns only the town’s own archive. 29 entries were added — Shimane’s Takeshima Reference Room and Web Takeshima Research Centre, the Cabinet Secretariat’s Takeshima archive portal, Tottori Prefectural Archives’ domain-era voyage records — anchored at the island’s official coordinates. The Northern Territories went from 10 to 19.
  • • For territories under Japanese administration before 1945, entries moved from listing gateways to naming what is inside them. Korea went from 6 to 45: the Digital Local Culture Encyclopedia (a regional encyclopedia for each of 121 municipalities), Kyujanggak’s historical-geography service, Yeojido-seo and the Sejong Sillok Jiriji, Seoul’s own translation of the Keijo Prefecture History, and Busan’s Busan-fu History draft. Taiwan went from 6 to 17, including the full-text image system for colonial-era books, a photo database of over 42,000 items, and a century of historical maps layered over the present.
  • • Every addendum entry remains unverified. No external site can be opened from this environment, so the claim stops at names and URLs corroborated by search. The dashed outline and the “unverified” mark say so.
Islands, Chishima, Taiwan prefecture gazettes, Nan’yō: addenda to 329, territories to 129
  • • Hachijojima, Minamidaito and Kitadaito had no entries at all. Pins now stand on all four islands: the Hachijojima museum and Kondo Tomizo’s exile chronicle Hachijo Jikki (published by the NDL and the Tokyo Metropolitan Archives), the Minamidaito heritage centre, the Kitadaito phosphate-mine site, and the village survey reports.
  • • The Northern Territories were re-searched under their period names — Chishima Province, Shumushu District, Habomai Village of Hanasaki District. The 1893 expedition record, the 1901 Hokkaido survey of the northern Kurils, the Shumushu colonisation society’s album, Hokkaido University’s northern-materials database. Matching the search terms to the period brought out what had been invisible.
  • • Taiwan under Japanese administration now reaches prefecture-level gazettes — the Shinchiku and Tainan prefecture yearbooks (the latter openly readable), the Taito county history, the Government-General staff registers and gazette — 25 entries. The South Seas Bureau, as expected, was there: from its ten-year administrative history and openly-readable general surveys to the Saipan branch records, US Marine Corps photographs at the Okinawa Prefectural Archives, and the Trust Territory archives at the University of Hawaiʻi — 25 entries.
  • • Okinawa’s 21 records had clustered on one village. 54 entries were added: the prefectural archives’ Ryukyu-government collection, the emigration-records database (1900-1941), the Tsushima-maru archive, Okinawa City’s postwar archive, the Chuzan chronicles, and the royal diplomatic archive Rekidai Hoan, published by both the University of the Ryukyus and National Taiwan University.
Clearing the unknowns: addenda to 481, territories to 140, Edo gazetteers to 42
  • • Every item recorded as “still unknown” was run down by 21 searchers, all of whom completed their sweeps. The Edo gazetteers grew to 42 across 36 prefectures: the Bungo Kokushi turned out to be published by Oita’s prefectural library, and the Un’yoshi by Shimane University’s Kuwabara collection — two more cases where a work restricted at the NDL proves readable through another holder.
  • • A ninth category of miss emerged: county gazetteers. Counties have no present-day municipality, so a municipality-name search can never reach them — yet county gazetteers built the 1923 peak, the tallest bar on the timeline. Seven were placed on the cities that inherit the old county names.
  • • Twelve angles never yet searched — prefectural archives, local digital libraries, prefectural histories, villages erased by the Heisei mergers, remote islands, university repositories — were swept, adding 144 entries, from Wakayama’s historical-records archive to the digitised town histories of former Toi and Todohokke, now part of Hakodate.
  • • Karafuto doubled to 15 entries — the Hokkaido Museum’s full catalogues of the Karafuto Federation papers, the Wakkanai museum, Kyoto University’s Sakhalin collection — and eight institutions previously known only through vendor pages got their real front doors.
The overseas records now open as a room of their own
  • • The overseas section of Find Municipal Histories no longer unfolds inside the same page. It now leads to a room of its own. Period photographs of the five administrations — the Governments-General of Taiwan and Korea, the Karafuto, Kwantung and South Seas agencies — move behind the five items, in the same manner as the opening of the homepage. Choosing an office opens that collection below.
  • • The terminology note and the disclosed limit — that no destination has been opened — appear only after a collection is opened. Search and the dropdown reach these records exactly as before.
  • • The heading “Records of offices across the sea” now uses a mincho face, set apart from the body gothic.
The meaning of “addendum” now stated on screen
  • • The addenda are not a “added later” category. The 1,383 survey records were each opened and their access conditions confirmed; the addenda rest on search corroboration alone, unverified. The results heading now reads “Addenda — found by search, unverified” and explains that the counts are kept apart by grade of verification, not by date.
  • • The same heading and the Addenda mark now appear in English and Taiwan Mandarin (Traditional Chinese), so the grade of verification is stated in the language of the page.
R8 (2026).08.21NEWFIXIMPROVE
Knowledge Repository: prefectural and municipal maps, gathered nationwide
  • • Two new layers — Prefectural Maps and Municipal Maps — hold 130 newly added entries. For all 47 prefectures, all 20 designated cities and all 23 Tokyo wards, the map services those authorities publish themselves are now gathered in full.
  • • Inquiry can begin closer to home than the national datasets: with your own prefecture, or your own town. Searching by prefecture or municipality name leads straight to that authority's own map.
  • • Six theme tags were added — Tourism, Local Government, Historical Maps, Health & Sport, Daily Life & Welfare, and Economy & Industry. 79 existing entries were retagged along the way, and historical maps, until now folded in with cultural heritage, stand on their own.
  • • The collection now holds 485 entries, and the count shown on screen follows the real figure — correcting a display that had stayed at “300+”.
Knowledge Repository: every layer reachable from the home page
  • • A “Browse by Layer” row has been added to the Knowledge Repository section of the home page. Until now the layers could be opened only from inside the Knowledge Repository itself; from the home page there were three ways in — by school year, by method, and by theme.
  • • All 14 layers are listed, each with its number of entries. The two layers added this time — Prefectural Maps and Municipal Maps — and the long-standing AI Inquirer’s Commons are now one step from the home page.
  • • When a layer is added in future, the home page will no longer be left behind.
R8 (2026).08.17NEWFIX
New release: “Kokudaka Compare Map”
  • • A lesson that raises the kokudaka of 66,513 late-Edo villages as columns on the map, now openly released. The per-village figures come from the National Museum of Japanese History’s Kyudaka-Kyuryo Torishirabe-cho database; village positions, provinces, districts and domains come from the Early Modern Village Territory dataset. The national total is 31.75 million koku.
  • • Kokudaka was a stick for assessing tribute, not a harvest and not wealth. That caveat sits on screen at all times, and the closing act lists the livelihoods it never counted — forestry, charcoal, papermaking, sericulture, mining, fishing, commerce.
  • • Villages can be filtered by the grade of their surroundings. The figure averages the land within three kilometres rather than the single point, so a village on a valley floor and one on a ridge are not treated alike. Villages can also be bundled by province or by domain to read the ranking.
  • • The area ranking uses the width obtained by fusing 2015 farm-settlement faces back into early-modern village units. This is not the surveyed village boundary itself, so it carries an “estimate” mark, and villages whose face cannot be settled are left out of the list.
  • • It now sits third among the Lessons in Start an Inquiry. A screen that until now opened only from a direct link can be reached from the catalogue and from search.
  • • The Act 1 button, “Move in closer,” now takes you to a height where the coloured points give way to columns. Until now it landed where neither points nor columns were drawn, so nothing was visible: a column’s footprint is drawn at true size, and across the whole archipelago it is smaller than a pixel. Where it takes you follows the kind of land chosen in Act 0 — plain, basin, mountain valley, or coast.
  • • No advertisement frame is placed above the map any more. On a full-screen map such a frame pushed the map out of view and made it impossible to operate.
R8 (2026).08.16NEWFIXIMPROVE
New release: “Find Municipal Histories and Local Materials”
  • • A new inquiry content under a new room, “Local History.” For every municipality in Japan we checked, one by one, whether its municipal or local history can be read online — 2,860 records in total (1,383 found online, 1,477 to be read on paper).
  • • The answer is given in three states: readable now / conditional / read on paper. “Read on paper” is not a failure but the next move, so it is not coloured red, and the page names the destination — the library’s local-materials corner, with the Library Act as grounds. The page chrome follows the same Academic Editorial system as the rest of the site: navy opening, ivory landing, no period at the end of the title.
  • • Search by town name, kana reading, or old province name. Kana readings are taken from the Ministry of Internal Affairs’ “Local Government Codes of Japan” — none were guessed. Old province names are offered as a hint rather than silently widening the search, because provincial and prefectural borders do not coincide.
  • • Prefecture and municipality dropdowns are linked, in official code order. Towns with no record at all are labelled “(no record)” and the page says so plainly when chosen: 173 of 1,741 municipalities have neither an online location nor an offline note. The lists themselves are set on a white panel so the names stay readable on the dark opening.
  • • 22 entrances to archives of territories under Japanese rule (Taiwan, Korea, Karafuto, Kwantung, the South Seas) are listed as well. All are shown as unverified: this working environment cannot reach those hosts, and we say so rather than hide it. They are searchable with the same tools but are never added to the survey’s own totals.
Start an Inquiry map: pins for local-history archives
  • • 1,371 digital archives of municipal and local histories are now drawn on the map of Japan as translucent pins across 654 points. Municipal dots are enlarged; prefecture- and nation-level dots are a little larger still, so the two can be told apart at a glance. Press a point to open the list for that place.
  • • Red points are histories covering a prefecture or the nation; white points are municipal and village ones. The legend can be hidden. Existing blue pins are unaffected.
  • • Coordinates are derived from e-Stat municipal population centroids already in the repository — no new external data was fetched.
Local histories: a corrected classification, and a second national survey
  • • The map’s colour split was corrected nationwide. Asked why a village-level item was painted as a prefectural archive, we re-examined every record and found the administrative level had been picking up “is it published via the National Diet Library” and “is a national body the operator” rather than the scope of what the archive covers. Deciding it from what each title covers corrected 108 records — coloured points fell from 357 to 259. Twenty-seven per cent of the red dots were wrong.
  • • The pin colours were recomputed. Told that “someone with colour vision deficiency cannot tell them apart at all,” we stopped choosing by eye and ran a validator: the old white had only 1.03× the lightness of the ground beneath it and dissolved into pale terrain. The new pair separates under every type of colour vision, and differs in lightness and shape (filled vs. outlined) as well as hue, so it survives black-and-white printing. The legend is now drawn from the same values as the map, so the two cannot drift apart.
  • • A second sweep, along a different axis, added 56 entries to the addendum (8 → 64). Eleven of them — Ranzan’s web natural history, Kanra, the Amakusa Archives, Open OKURAIRI covering seven Okuaizu towns — are things the original survey’s own axis should have caught and simply miscounted. The 1,383 was not complete even on its own terms.
  • • Five more records of the four northern islands were added, bringing to ten the entries anchored at a single point on Kunashiri. They include testimonies of former islanders readable island by island, and the administrative divisions as they stood at the war’s end: the Habomais as outlying islands of Habomai village, Shikotan village on Shikotan, Tomari and RurUbetsu on Kunashiri, Rubetsu, Shana and Shibetoro on Etorofu.
  • • The addendum now reaches the screen of the person actually researching that town. An archive held by a prefectural library is of no use to a small town if it only appears when the prefectural capital is chosen, so such entries now surface from any municipality in the same prefecture, and those spanning several towns can be found from all of them. All 64 addendum entries remain unverified, and the towns left unsearched are named in the survey record.
Start Inquiry: the opening headline
  • • The headline on Start Inquiry now reads “Inquiry by quality of experience.” The four rooms are unchanged.
R8 (2026).08.15FIX
3D white relief editor: open ocean no longer left as a grey gap
  • • When an island and a wide stretch of sea are selected together, areas offshore where elevation is unavailable no longer appear as a grey void; they remain as sea.
  • • Inland lakes, and places where elevation could not be fetched because of a connection failure, are not treated as sea.
R8 (2026).08.11NEWFIXIMPROVE
Theater: portrait short-film stage on desktop too
  • • On computers, “Stories in the Data” now keeps the same tall, narrow player used on phones, so every short film fills the stage without stretching sideways.
Start Inquiry: labeled ad frame below the catalog
  • • On the Start Inquiry page, the same white “Ad” framed slot used elsewhere now sits under the Special exhibit · Theater row, before the footer.
3D white relief editor: more map symbols
  • • Important point ① is now a hollow circle (○, e.g. ward offices), ③ a true double circle (◎), ④ a filled triangle (▲), and ⑤ a solid circle (●) — each at every symbol size.
  • • A power-plant symbol (without the transmission-line mark; fine lines) has been added next to Factory in the picker.
  • • A high-school symbol — the same “文” as elementary/junior high, a little smaller and ringed — sits beside that school mark.
  • • A museum symbol (classical pediment and columns) has been added just before Library; a clearer stone Buddha on a pedestal sits beside Monument; an amusement-park mark (fine Ferris-wheel silhouette) sits after Hot spring; and the mining-site mark now follows the crossed-pickaxe legend more closely.
  • • A tiny “indicated point” mark — a filled circle half the size of Important point ⑤ — has been added for marking spots lightly.
  • • A ramen mark has been added at the end of the symbol picker: a bowl seen from about 45°, with right-handed chopsticks lifting noodles from inside.
  • • Sidebar section headers in the relief editor (Infrastructure and the rest) now read clearly as buttons even before hover — a light frame, soft fill, and a chevron.
3D white relief editor: main river courses retained after water correction
  • • Fixed a mismatch that could make corrected main river courses disappear again in the 3D print simulation.
  • • The simulation now evaluates corrected waterways at the same minimum width used to preserve them in the 3D output.
R8 (2026).08.10NEWIMPROVE
Start Inquiry: catalog reorganised by experience type, with a new theater
  • • The Inquiry Target Catalog is now sorted into four rooms — Lesson, Lab, Field, and Special exhibit — and laid out in the same horizontal rows as the homepage, so visitors can see how to begin before picking a theme. Special exhibit sits last because it is mainly for viewing. Name search is gone; a full-width red ALL button and room tiles handle filtering, with space held for a couple more rooms later.
  • • Special exhibits hold the Water Network and Monsoons / jet streams / currents floor, plus a new theater, “Stories in the Data,” with seven short films on population, cities, life expectancy, wealth, crops, fisheries, and rainforests. The column is labeled Special exhibit · Theater; the theater card itself is tagged Theater. On phones the theater keeps the short tall and the playlist as a sideways strip, so the page does not bury the film under long text.
  • • Population Density Compare and Climate Compare sit under Lesson; the Coastline Time Machine under Lab; Fukuoka and Kanazawa under Field. The Coastline Time Machine on-screen label now reads “Lab · Move time to see.”
  • • On the homepage, the ads under Start Inquiry and below the footer edition line now sit in the same labeled “Ad” frame used elsewhere, so they read as clear advertising slots rather than bare white strips.
  • • Search and AI-citation signals now match the current four-room catalog, theater, language alternates, and public recognition facts.
R8 (2026).08.09IMPROVE
First major overhaul (Ver. 1.1) ⑪ — IMPROVE: 3D exports (3MF) are now far lighter
  • • The exported 3MF file is now about half its former size for the same model (measured: 51 MB → 28 MB), and exporting takes about half the time.
  • • Slicers open the file noticeably faster, and running out of memory on tablets during export becomes far less likely.
  • • The shape of the model and the printed result are unchanged — only the internal construction of the flat underside was reorganised, and automated checks hold the rest of the output byte-for-byte.
First major overhaul (Ver. 1.1) ⑫ — guidance for the slicer’s “Object too small” prompt
  • • When opening an exported 3MF, models with small parts — sluice gates, tunnel portals — may make the slicer suspect a unit mistake and ask whether to scale to millimetres.
  • • The bundled notes and the output sheet (screen, copy and print alike) now state plainly: always choose “No”. Choosing “Yes” would enlarge only the small parts and break the model.
  • • The model itself is built correctly in millimetres; nothing in the shape has changed.
R8 (2026).08.08NEWFIXIMPROVE
First major overhaul (Ver. 1.1) ⑧ — the editor now speaks English and Taiwanese Mandarin throughout
  • • Every panel, confirmation screen, output sheet and guide in the 3D white relief map editor can now be used in Japanese, English and Taiwanese Mandarin (Traditional Chinese).
  • • What you see on screen, what you copy, and what you print carry the same content in the same language, held in place by automated checks.
  • • The printed A4 sheet fits on one page in all three languages, and a defect that split numbers across line breaks in print has been fixed.
First major overhaul (Ver. 1.1) ⑨ — ferry routes join roads and railways as a category of their own
  • • Ferry and water-bus routes can now be imported and modelled, alongside roads and railways.
  • • Routes are drawn as dashed lines so they read apart from the sea, and their colour can be chosen like any other item (navy by default; import is off by default).
  • • The raised height can be adjusted in the same place as the other categories, and the notes bundled with the exported file explain what a route line is and is not.
First major overhaul (Ver. 1.1) ⑩ — waterway types now explain themselves
  • • Each waterway item carries its definition in the fold-out notes: canals bring water to fields and boats, drains and gutters carry surplus water away, and streams flow naturally.
  • • The former “tidal waterways” item is now “streams & tidal creeks” — the channels the tide carves naturally into a tidal flat.
  • • The waterway item names themselves now appear in all three languages.
Across the site — recognition records in the FAQ, and small fixes
  • • The FAQ section “Recognition and exhibitions” now lists two awards and four appearances, each with a link to an official source.
  • • Fixed the Taiwan flag being clipped on its right-hand side in the language menu.
  • • Added news entries for exhibiting at the Education AI Summit 2026 and for carrying out the first major overhaul (Ver. 1.1).
R8 (2026).08.06NEWFIXIMPROVE
First major overhaul (Ver. 1.1) ④ — NEW: choose how fine the elevation data is, and see where it came from
  • • A new “terrain detail” setting lets you choose between 10 m (standard) and 5 m (laser survey).
  • • The default stays at 10 m (standard); switching to 5 m goes through a confirmation screen that states three things plainly — heights can go down as well as up, an unreal step can appear where the laser survey stops, and both the data volume and the load on your device increase.
  • • With 5 m chosen, the editor reports how much of the area it was able to cover with laser-surveyed elevation, and how much boundary there is where the source of the survey changes.
  • • Where no laser survey has been carried out, 5 m elevation measured from aerial photographs may be used to fill in, and its share is reported separately from the laser-survey share, since it is a different way of measuring.
  • • The status bar now states roughly when the terrain was surveyed, and a 5 m export records which elevation data was used in the credits and notes bundled with the 3MF file.
First major overhaul (Ver. 1.1) ⑤ — IMPROVE: rivers and lines are drawn at widths the model can actually carry
  • • The water item “Major rivers” is now “Major rivers (main stem only)”, so the name and the description say plainly that no centre line is drawn for branching tributaries.
  • • A river too narrow at that scale for the model to carry as a groove is no longer drawn.
  • • The editor states how many rivers are being left out, and notes that choosing a smaller area brings them back.
  • • The preview and the exported file now leave out exactly the same rivers.
  • • For roads, railways, erosion- and flood-control lines and municipal boundaries, setting a very fine line width no longer produces a line too thin for the model to carry (at the default settings nothing looks different; river lines follow their own separate minimum), and the municipal boundary width now sits in the same printable range as the other widths.
First major overhaul (Ver. 1.1) ⑥ — imports wait less, show their progress, and can be stopped part-way
  • • Last time we noted that importing a wide area still took minutes; that wait has now been shortened for roads and railways.
  • • Nothing was thinned out or left behind to achieve it: the imported content is the same as before, and this speed-up on its own changes nothing in the resulting model.
  • • Importing water now shows what it is doing and how far along it is, and it can be cancelled part-way (the import itself is no faster than before).
  • • Exporting now waits less, and for the same area what is on screen is what gets exported.
  • • Over a wide area the station import could run out of time and leave a model with no stations in it at all, without a word; it is now less likely to run out of time over a wide area, and a failure is reported on screen.
First major overhaul (Ver. 1.1) ⑦ — FIX: failed imports are now reported, and everyday operations behave as expected
  • • When importing rivers and lakes, or importing or searching historic and cultural sites, a failure produced no message at all, so “there is none in this area” and “the connection failed” looked identical; the two are now told apart on screen.
  • • As a result, an import failure no longer slips by unnoticed and leaves you with a model that has no rivers in it — partial coverage, and failures that occur during export, are reported in the same way.
  • • Bus stops were being raised into relief as if they were railway platforms; only railway platforms are raised now.
  • • Pressing Ctrl+Z while typing a name or a number undid the last drawn line instead of the typing, and Ctrl+Shift+Z (redo) had never worked at all; both are fixed.
  • • A confirmation screen with a long explanation could not be scrolled as far as its button on phones and short portrait screens: the essential cautions now come first, the detail folds away, and the button stays in view (the screen reporting gaps in elevation data, published on 4 August, now follows the same form).
R8 (2026).08.05FIXIMPROVE
First major overhaul (Ver. 1.1) ② — FIX: river mouths that came out as land are now water, so a big river reaches the sea without breaking
  • • On large rivers, the stretch nearest the sea could come out as land instead of water — the river simply stopped part-way. Confirmed on the Yamato River in Osaka and the Yoshino River in Tokushima, and now fixed.
  • • The cause was a hand-over point in the underlying map data: right at the mouth, the stretch was covered only by a source the editor was not reading there, so nothing claimed it as water. The editor now follows water that is continuous with water it already has, and fills that gap in.
  • • With “Major rivers” selected, a river now runs unbroken from inland all the way to the sea.
  • • The shape, width and colour of rivers are unchanged — only the missing stretch is added.
First major overhaul (Ver. 1.1) ③ — with a large road and railway import loaded, changing a line’s width or colour is now near-instant
  • • With a wide area imported (measured on roughly 1,400 km² with about 15,000 roads and railways), changing one level’s print width used to leave the editor unresponsive for close to a minute. The same change now settles in about a second — roughly sixty times faster in that heavy case. Smaller areas were always quicker, so the gain you see grows with how much you have imported.
  • • The same waiting affected map symbols and the flood-control layer; both now respond in the same way.
  • • Image export (PNG / JPG) no longer freezes the browser, and it can be cancelled part-way like the 3D formats.
  • • While map data is still downloading, the editor now keeps responding to your input instead of locking up. Downloading a very wide area still takes minutes — that part depends on the map servers.
  • • Nothing about the drawn result changed: the same lines, symbols and colours come out as before.
R8 (2026).08.04NEWFIX
First major overhaul (Ver. 1.1) ① — 3MF export now completes on iPad, and models are protected from gaps in elevation data
  • • Exporting a large or sea-side area as 3MF on iPad could reload the page mid-way and never finish. The export now puts far less strain on the device (about one fifth of the working space it used to need), so iPad can carry it through to the end.
  • • The same change also benefits desktop computers: large, high-resolution exports have become lighter.
  • • Where elevation data momentarily failed to load, the model could silently come out flat at 0 m. The editor now retries and fills in automatically, and if a spot still cannot be confirmed it shows the details before exporting so you can cancel or knowingly continue. The sea, which has no elevation data by nature, exports as before.
  • • If an export would grow past the file format’s size limit, the editor now stops with a clear message instead of saving a broken file.
R8 (2026).08.01NEWFIXIMPROVE
3D white relief map editor — IMPROVE: road tunnels are now one simple dashed centre line at any road width
  • • Setting the motorway and national-road widths to 0.8 mm made the two edge lines merge into a single line, and you told us you liked that look. Road tunnels now always draw that way, however wide the road is — the two-edge mode has been removed entirely rather than kicking in above a threshold.
  • • The dash is 0.8× the road’s own width, never thinner than 0.3 mm. Motorways come out at 1.12 mm, national roads at 0.80 mm, and the thinnest classes stay at the 0.3 mm floor so they still print.
  • • The gap between dashes is worked back from how the ink actually lands: round line caps stretch each dash by the line width, so the gap is set to dash + 2×width. Dash and gap now read as equal length on the model, which they did not before.
  • • Tunnel depth, portal marks and railway tunnels are unchanged.
3D white relief map editor — NEW: the print-settings sheet now lists every line width
  • • A line-width list has been added under Basic settings, kept separate from the colour list so width and colour can be read independently. It fits on the same single A4 sheet in two columns.
  • • Tunnel rows show the width actually drawn, not the road’s nominal width. Shinkansen tunnels are shown as their real “×2 strands” form.
  • • Water-control levels that are hidden behind a higher level in the finished model are no longer listed, so no filament colour is assigned to an object that does not exist.
3D white relief map editor — FIX: print simulation did not follow width and colour edits
  • • After importing OSM roads, changing a level’s width, colour or line style updated the 3D preview and the exported file but not the print simulation, which kept drawing with the values from the moment of import. The style table is now built in one shared place and handed to all three.
  • • The simulation’s water-width correction used a blanket dilation, so wide rivers and coastlines also grew and the “loss with correction” figure came out kinder than reality. It now uses the same correction the export does, which only lifts the parts that are too thin.
  • • Turning the finer-waterways switch on or off could fail to reach the exported file in some sequences, and the credits could then miss the water sources. Fixed.
02MONTH

July 2026

R8 (2026).07.31NEWFIXIMPROVE
3D white relief map editor — FIX: the finer-waterways supplement was missing most mountain streams
  • • The supplement only read river centerlines, but on the topographic map most streams are drawn as a water surface with two bank lines instead — and those have no centerline at all. At the four spots reported as missing around Mount Takao, the nearest water was 150 m, 117 m, 75 m and 8 m away; the supplement simply had nothing to draw there.
  • • Water surfaces are now taken as areas as well, so streams appear with their real width instead of as a single hairline. Coverage of the blue pixels on the reference map rose from 60.4% to 96.0% in that area, and the four spots now sit within 0.3–1.3 m of water. The remaining blue that is not reproduced turned out to be the route-number shield of National Route 20 — not water, so it correctly stays out.
  • • No extra download: the same tiles were already being fetched, and only one more layer inside them is now read. The sea is never mixed in (verified on real tiles at Tateyama: all 38 sea fragments excluded), and dry streambeds are not drawn.
  • • Water area grows roughly 4.7-fold and about 50 small ponds appear in this test area, which is faithful to the map. Please check filament use and appearance once by printing.
3D white relief map editor — FIX: expressway tunnels looked like a ladder
  • • The two edge lines added on July 31 used the same dash pattern in the same phase, so their breaks lined up; on a dual carriageway such as the Ken-O Expressway the result read as rungs across the road. Measured as ink-blob proportions, the shape had flipped from 3.00:1 along the road to 1:2.63 across it.
  • • Re-reading the mapping rules in the original text showed the dashes were a mistake of ours: only railway tunnels are specified as dashed. Road tunnels follow the surface road and merely drop the interior fill. Edges are now a near-solid dash (5.0 mm line, 0.8 mm gap) at 0.30 mm width — the minimum this software itself guarantees for printing.
  • • The rule that close parallel roads may share one edge is now applied, so the up and down carriageways merge their inner edges into one. A tunnel now reads as a calm three-line band. Measured after the change, blobs that read as rungs fell from 51% to 0%.
  • • Railway tunnels keep the 0.3 mm dashed line, which matches the rules and was already correct.
3D white relief map editor — IMPROVE: tunnel lines redrawn to topographic-map convention; recess now optional
  • • Railway tunnels are now drawn as a thin dashed line (0.4× the line width, minimum 0.3 mm) instead of a full-width dash, and road tunnels as two thin 0.22 mm dashed edge lines, following the Geospatial Information Authority 1:25,000 map style whose provisions were verified in the original text. Narrow roads whose edges would sit closer than 0.22 mm apart fall back automatically to a single dashed line at 0.8× the road width.
  • • Corners are compensated so the two edge lines never merge at sharp bends (verified by offline rasterization across 130 cases: zero merges, zero self-intersections).
  • • The default 0.2 mm recess for tunnel sections has been retired: with thin lines the groove is unnecessary, so the default is now flush (0 mm). The −0.2 / −0.4 mm recess options remain selectable, and saved projects that chose a recess keep it on restore.
3D white relief map editor — NEW: "finer waterways" supplement from GSI vector data
  • • A new checkbox at the bottom of the water panel (off by default) adds mountain streams and small watercourses that OpenStreetMap does not carry, taken from the GSI vector tiles (first-class river centerlines). Around Mount Takao, 77% of GSI streams had no OSM counterpart, so mountain models gain a much richer drainage network.
  • • Streams within 25 m of an OSM waterway are suppressed automatically, so the same river is never drawn twice. A note explains that intermittent or dry channels may be included.
  • • The OSM side was also audited: streams, drains, ditches and tidal channels were already fetched — no gaps.
3D white relief map editor — NEW: Lv5 footpaths and mountain trails
  • • A new road level Lv5 fetches OSM paths, footways, steps, pedestrian streets and bridleways — the hiking trails and alley steps that were previously invisible. Around Mount Takao this fills in about nine tenths of the "missing" thin paths (46.8 km in the test area).
  • • Drawn as a 0.3 mm solid line in a new pale-yellow tint, kept underneath Lv4 so existing roads are unaffected. Off by default because wide areas can be heavy to fetch. Toll footbridges stay in Lv4 as before.
3D white relief map editor — FIX: small water-control structures were silently dropped
  • • Sluice gates and small weirs were discarded at fetch time (around Mount Takao, both sluice gates and 19 of 83 weirs were lost) and most of the rest vanished in a minimum-size filter before printing. The fetch cut-off now keeps structures down to 0.2 m of real size, and anything smaller than 0.22 mm on the model is enlarged to 0.22 mm so it actually prints.
  • • Sufficiently large structures keep their true size. Because this enlarges reality for visibility, the settings panel now says so explicitly — the same policy as station platforms.
3D white relief map editor — FIX: the print simulation offered a 0.6 mm river widening the real export does not have
  • • The simulator’s river width options included 0.6 mm even though the export guarantee stops at 0.4 mm, so you could preview a look that print could never reproduce. The choices now match the export exactly.
R8 (2026).07.30NEWFIXIMPROVE
3D white relief map editor — FIX: station boxes now align with the track and print as solid pads
  • • The grey station rectangle used to be a hollow frame aligned to north-south/east-west, so at stations on diagonal tracks it sat visibly askew (29 degrees off at Takaosanguchi) and printed as thin walls with nothing inside. It is now a solid pad, rotated to the direction of the nearest track within 100 m, sitting 0.2 mm above the conventional-line height. Verified against real map data: the rotated pad matches the actual platform axis within 0.4 degrees. Stations whose outline is drawn in the map data are filled with their real shape.
  • • The default station-building height changed from +1.0 mm to +0.8 mm above the conventional line (choices: +0.8 recommended / +1.0 / +1.4). The track-platform-building three-tier order holds in every combination.
  • • Fixed a bug where a bus terminal was printed as a railway station enclosure, and moved the pad below platforms in the overlap order so it can never paint over them.
3D white relief map editor — FIX: a short underpass could still be printed as a tunnel when the selection edge cut off its connecting road
  • • One phantom tunnel survived the July 30 length gate: when the surface road connected to an underpass lies just outside the selected area, the underpass looked unconnected to any surface road and was kept as a tunnel out of caution. At Hachioji Junction a 38 m under-crossing ramp was carved as a tunnel with portals this way.
  • • The rescue now requires positive evidence: a short unnamed tunnel is kept only when its end can be shown to continue underground into another tunnel in the data. Scored on real map data across 8 areas and 64 tunnel chains: zero false keeps and zero false demotions, and genuine underground ramps (inside the Sagamihara-Hachioji tunnel, and the underground connectors of Ohashi Junction) are all preserved.
  • • The new rule is strictly narrower than the old one, so no location that printed without a tunnel before will suddenly gain one.
3D white relief map editor — IMPROVE: relief settings survive restore; print simulation digs tunnels like the real output
  • • All relief settings — water, drawn lines, infrastructure with its per-level overrides, tunnel recess, map symbols, boundaries, water-control works, profiles, and platform/station-building heights — are now included in the automatic snapshot, so restoring work after a reload brings them back. Old snapshots without these fields simply restore the defaults, and the added size is a few hundred bytes.
  • • The print simulation used to paint tunnel sections at surface height even though the real output recesses them by 0.2 mm. It now digs them with the same value as the output, so the steps you see in the simulation are the steps you get in print.
3D white relief map editor — NEW: per-level relief height for roads and railways
  • • The relief height of OSM roads and railways can now be set for each level (roads Lv1-Lv4, railways Lv1-Lv5), in the same way that hand-drawn line groups already allow. Levels left untouched inherit the single infrastructure value, and the default remains 0 mm, flush with the terrain.
  • • Pressing "Apply recommended values for reading historical context" now sets every level to a uniform 0.4 mm. Differentiating the grades was considered and rejected: height is decided per class, whereas which line passes over which is decided per location by the OSM layer value, so the two can disagree and a line that genuinely passes above would read as though it dipped below. Raise individual levels yourself when you want the road hierarchy to be felt by hand.
  • • Platform and station building heights are now measured from the conventional-line (Lv2 passenger railway) height, and each can be chosen from three steps around the recommended value: platform +0.2 / +0.4 (recommended) / +0.6 mm, station building +0.8 / +1.0 (recommended) / +1.4 mm. The options are arranged so that track under platform under station building always holds.
  • • Tunnel sections keep the dedicated tunnel value regardless of the per-level setting, and portal marks follow the height of their own road or railway level.
3D white relief map editor — FIX: interchange grade separations were printed as tunnels
  • • At Hachioji Junction and Takaosan Interchange, ramps that merely dip about 30 m under the road above are recorded as "tunnel" in the map data, so they were printed as full tunnels — dashed line, recess, carved cavity and portal marks. The surface road disappeared and was replaced by underground holes and short bars, which does not match the real place.
  • • A dip shorter than 100 m that carries no tunnel name and connects to surface roads at both ends is now printed as an ordinary road. The line is not removed; it simply stops being treated as a tunnel.
  • • Three rescues keep genuinely short tunnels intact: named ones (Japanese practice records the route name and the tunnel name in separate fields, so both are read), avalanche protectors and snow sheds, and sections whose far end continues underground into another tunnel. Conversely, building passages and culverts are treated as surface features however long they are.
  • • Portal bars are now placed only where a real entrance connects to the surface and that entrance lies inside the selected area. They no longer appear where a tunnel simply leaves the selection or continues underground.
  • • A related defect was fixed: portal bars used to pile up on top of each other every time infrastructure was fetched again.
3D white relief map editor — FIX: roads on bridges were erased by the railways passing underneath
  • • Overlaps at grade separations were decided purely by class rank (Shinkansen over passenger rail over expressway and so on), so a road running across a bridge was overwritten and broken by the railway beneath it. The Chuo Expressway bridge was erased by the Chuo Main Line, Minamino Ohashi by the JR Yokohama Line, and the Shuto Expressway Inner Circular Route by both the Tohoku Shinkansen and the Yamanote Line.
  • • The "layer" value in the map data is now read first, and class rank decides only within the same layer. Multi-level stacks resolve correctly as well.
  • • Bridge height is unchanged, because layer describes stacking order rather than elevation. No new print objects are produced; only the ownership of the overlapping pixels changed.
  • • Preview, print simulation and 3MF export now share one ordering, so what is seen on screen matches what is printed.
3D white relief map editor — NEW: station buildings print as solid volumes
  • • Buildings recorded as station buildings in the map data are now printed 1.0 mm above the track. A station building sits above the railway, so the track disappears at its outline and the line appears to run into the building. The three tiers are track as the base, platform +0.4 mm and station building +1.0 mm, and the steps hold even when the infrastructure relief is changed.
  • • Where the map data has no station building outline, a rectangle is substituted at the station position. The number of substitutions is shown on screen together with a note that it is not surveyed data.
  • • Station enclosure frames now appear. This is not a new feature but the repair of a defect: a unit conversion error made the test always fail, so not a single frame had ever been produced.
  • • Fixed a defect that synthesised a non-existent surface platform at stations that only have underground platforms, and excluded bus terminals that were being printed as station buildings.
3D white relief map editor — IMPROVE: print settings note bundled with models that use map symbols
  • • Map symbol strokes are 0.6 mm wide, which a 0.4 mm nozzle cannot cover with two walls, so depending on slicer settings a small unfilled spot can remain where strokes cross. The manual bundled in the 3MF now includes a section recommending an outer wall width of 0.45 mm or more with gap fill enabled (Japanese, English and Traditional Chinese).
  • • Symbol junctions are connected by design. This was verified at every junction of all 21 symbols, confirming that the rounded stroke ends fill them without ever exceeding the stroke width, and the property was pinned in the automated checks so any regression is caught.
3D white relief map editor — FIX: tunnel openings could appear where no portal exists
  • • Tunnel openings could appear on hillsides or river banks where no real portal exists. Cavity construction was rebuilt from the ground up: it is now derived only from the tunnel path and the kind of each end (real portal / cut face / data break), so openings appear only at real portals and on the cut faces of the model.
  • • Long tunnels crossing the whole selection (mountain passes, strait crossings) could be skipped entirely because no portal lay inside the area. They now bore correctly from cut face to cut face.
  • • Covered tunnels that are never buried in terrain relief — such as subways under flat cities — are now carved as proper cavities too.
  • • Tunnels split into several fragments in the map data are now joined automatically, so no false opening appears at the seams.
3D white relief map editor — IMPROVE: tunnel cavities are now an official feature and exist only between portals
  • • Tunnel cavity carving has been promoted from an experimental toggle to an official feature. A cavity now exists only between a pair of portals: it never surfaces where no portal exists, dives automatically where the terrain is shallow, and is not created at all for lines that are never buried.
  • • When a tunnel continues beyond the selected area, a proper portal now opens on the cut face of the model.
  • • The "minimum cover" and "interior descent" settings were replaced by automatic adjustment; the only remaining option is the portal flare (none / subtle / standard), and the description was shortened.
R8 (2026).07.29NEWFIXIMPROVE
3D white relief map editor — FIX: some ordinary national routes printed as expressways
  • • A road-grading error caused some ordinary national routes to print in the "Lv1 Expressways & toll roads" class. The grading was re-verified against public classification standards and real-world data, and national routes now fall into Lv2 as intended.
  • • Toll footbridges and similar non-motor paths could appear at expressway width; they are now placed in the lowest road class.
  • • Automated checks were added so this family of misclassification cannot recur silently.
3D white relief map editor — FIX: missing river-control structures and doubled objects in flood-control levels
  • • In some regions, river-training structures were missing from the flood-control fetch. The classification coverage was re-verified and corrected, and if the map source ever carries an unrecognised structure type, the panel now says so instead of dropping it silently.
  • • With multiple levels enabled at once, the same structure could be written twice into the exported model; levels now own their pixels exclusively, and on-screen priority matches the export exactly.
  • • Changing the level selection after a fetch now shows a clear "refetch to apply" hint.
3D white relief map editor — IMPROVE: water layers reorganised, an independent sea with estuary repair, and an always-available output-size bar
  • • Water is reorganised into "Sea", "Lakes, large ponds & moats (about 1 ha and larger)" and "Small ponds & reservoirs (under about 1 ha)". Small ponds default to off, which clears the fine pond noise that auto-fetched maps used to produce.
  • • Misclassified waters (fish ponds and the like counted as rivers) were corrected and previously missed reservoir ponds are now fetched. Tidal-flat channels are folded into the Streams layer.
  • • The sea is its own checkbox and prints as a separate part. Rivers/lakes and the sea each have their own colour control, both defaulting to blue. River mouths are closed cleanly and shorelines smoothed.
  • • All on-screen views (2D map, 3D preview, simulation) now always draw rivers at their true width. "River width" is a minimum-width guarantee tied to nozzle sizes (0.22/0.3/0.4 mm): only in exported data, only channels below the chosen minimum are raised to it — wide rivers never get fatter.
  • • Fixed low-lying blocks enclosed by waterways (ring-levee districts and the like) being painted as water, and rivers with no mapped water surface going missing near their mouths. The sea is now verified to be continuous from the edge of the selection, and missing river surfaces are filled from the official base map.
  • • A permanent output-size bar (80-300 mm) sits in the header; the value persists, follows into the print simulation, and no longer resets after an export. The "recommended values" button now also brings in ponds and moats.
3D white relief map editor — NEW: station platforms print as raised slabs
  • • Station platforms can now be printed as solid shapes, raised one step above the track, so a station reads as a place where trains stop rather than a bare line.
  • • Real platforms are narrow; parts too thin to print are widened just enough to survive, while sufficiently wide platforms keep their true footprint.
  • • Underground stations and platforms are excluded from the surface model. Stations whose platform shape is not on the map get a substitute rectangle, clearly labelled as such on screen.
  • • Off by default; the "Apply recommended values for historical reading" button turns it on.
3D white relief map editor — NEW: choose whether the 3MF carries colour data
  • • 3MF export now offers "do not carry colours (recommended)" or "carry colours". Some slicers remap embedded colours to the filaments you currently have loaded, shifting the palette.
  • • Exporting without colours skips the slicer's colour-import step entirely; you assign filaments per the bundled colour table, which cannot drift. Choose "carry colours" to embed them as before.
R8 (2026).07.26NEWFIXIMPROVE
Knowledge Repository: a new "AI inquirer's commons" shelf
  • • Added a new category for readers who want to move from reading maps to making them, gathering worked examples, colour guidance and terrain-rendering technique from around the world.
  • • 17 resources are listed, spanning Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States, Taiwan and international bodies; several are in Japanese and can be followed without translation.
  • • The shelf description now states clearly that it is for making maps with generative AI, not a how-to for the AI tools themselves. An Africa-focused satellite notebook set sits with geographic primary data instead.
Intelligence & Archives: ads no longer interrupt the main browsing view
  • • Automatic ads are turned off on the Knowledge Repository (Intelligence & Archives) pages, so a large banner no longer appears between the search field and the layer filters.
  • • The same applies to English and Taiwan Mandarin (Traditional Chinese) mirrors and to pages under that section.
Intelligence & Archives: a teacher guide when you choose Teachers
  • • Choosing the Teachers chip in the grade-level row now shows a short “lesson design and materials research” guide—same style as the Elementary course description.
  • • The Teachers card in the grade overview also opens that guide, and teacher-oriented resources (lesson plans and guidance materials) are included in the filtered list.
Intelligence & Archives: Video, overseas, and teacher tags read more clearly
  • • Resources whose main offering is video (including major teaching libraries) now carry the Video type, so the Video chip and a search for “video” / “動画” list them.
  • • Portals that only link to an explainer video keep the “official video available” mark instead, so they no longer clutter the Video list.
  • • Overseas tools, teacher facets, VR exhibits, map colour guides, and a few map/data labels were retagged for clearer filters; elementary-friendly grade tags were left in place.
  • • Searching also matches resource-type labels. If several filters stack and return nothing, a short hint explains how to clear and try again.
R8 (2026).07.25NEWFIXIMPROVE
Site security: advertising scripts no longer blocked by mistake
  • • Allowed Google’s ad quality-check scripts that some pages need, so the browser console no longer reports them as blocked and ads can finish loading more reliably.
SEO / GEO: public definition, sitemap, and multilingual metadata aligned
  • • Added clearer metadata and sitemap coverage for public pages, including three-language paths for the definition, FAQ, comparison pages, and the 3D White Map Editor.
  • • Published English and Taiwan Mandarin (Traditional Chinese) FAQ and comparison mirrors, linked them from the footer in every language, and updated the LLM plain-text guide so those pages can be quoted in the matching language.
  • • Opened English and Taiwan Mandarin (Traditional Chinese) routes for the 3D White Map Editor and its print simulation, and made the simulation screen labels follow the visitor’s language.
  • • Made the QGIS & Geo Lab page and the security / operating-principles page follow the visitor’s language for body copy, so English and Taiwan Mandarin (Traditional Chinese) no longer fall back to Japanese-only text.
  • • Expanded structured data and recognition notes so award facts can be cited without exposing internal implementation notes, and aligned the README’s SEO / GEO table with Geographic Base Material wording.
Knowledge Repository: fieldwork resources refined for teachers
  • • Added 4 region-rooted fieldwork resources to the Teachers’ commons, focusing on groups that actively walk, preserve, and teach from old roads and local historical landscapes.
  • • Removed a university department fieldwork page from that filter because it read more like career guidance than a teacher-facing classroom resource.
3D White Map Editor: mid water-line width for print boost
  • • Added a 0.3 mm water-line boost option between the finer and thicker choices in both the export dialog and the print simulation.
  • • Kept the control row the same overall width by tightening each button so the new option fits without stretching the panel.
SEO / GEO: awards and exhibitions made easier to cite
  • • Expanded the LLM plain-text guide and site structured data so the Gakujoken Award, the G-Spatial EXPO Visitor’s Award, and public exhibitions such as Geo Exhibition 2026 can be quoted with dates and verification links.
  • • Added FAQ answers about awards and exhibitions in Japanese, English, and Taiwan Mandarin (Traditional Chinese). For the Visitor’s Award, the primary link is the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan award-list PDF; other news items use official pages where available.
R8 (2026).07.23IMPROVE
3D White Map Editor: previous-area guide made easier to see
  • • After you clear the map area, the previous square and lines now appear as a clearer amber dashed guide, so the last area is easier to spot on pale basemaps.
  • • The guide stays visually distinct from the blue frame used while selecting a new area, so “previous” and “current” are not confused.
3D White Map Editor: Bambu Studio print steps clarified (Append, then assign by hand)
  • • The notes bundled with the downloaded 3MF and the export screen now explain the full print path: choose “Append” on import, then load matching filaments and assign AMS slots by hand — not automatic Mapping or Overwrite.
  • • They also warn that “Color match” and automatic AMS sync can look map-like on screen while still drifting from the exported colours.
3D White Map Editor: print checklist and filament assignment table for Bambu Studio
  • • The 3MF export screen now shows a short print checklist and the list of unique filament colours to prepare before slicing.
  • • The README and palette.json inside the downloaded 3MF now include a numbered object-to-colour table and a unique-colour shopping list for hand assignment to AMS slots.
3D White Map Editor: default colours aligned to the print palette
  • • Default colours for terrain, water, heritage, admin, elevation, slope bands, shinkansen, and road Lv2 now use the same swatches as the print colour palette, so the same named colour is not split into near-duplicate HEX values.
  • • Road Lv2 now shares yellow with Lv3; shinkansen uses black. Existing sessions that still had the old defaults are updated automatically; custom colours stay as set.
R8 (2026).07.22IMPROVE
3D White Map Editor: guidance for opening 3MF in Bambu Studio 2.5+
  • • In Bambu Studio 2.5 and later, opening a 3MF shows a colour-assignment dialog; proceeding as-is can replace the map colours with your loaded filament colours (for example, water turning navy). The notes bundled with the downloaded 3MF and the export screen now explain to choose "Append" before continuing.
  • • They also describe the manual fallback for re-assigning colours: set the filaments in the order of the bundled colour list.
R8 (2026).07.21FIXIMPROVE
3D White Map Editor: quieter workspace and earlier basemap choice
  • • Advertisements no longer appear above the 3D White Map Editor, including leftover banners after moving from other pages.
  • • You can switch the basemap (including the white map) before selecting an area, so town outlines are easier to see while deciding the square.
3D White Map Editor: tunnel cavity aligned to raised infrastructure
  • • Experimental tunnel cavities now follow the raised top of Infrastructure relief, so the passage sits where the printed road or railway would be.
  • • While the cavity option is on, portal bars are omitted so they do not plug the opening; exterior dashed tunnel lines remain.
  • • Minimum cover is measured from that raised crown, matching the on-screen description.
3D White Map Editor: area guide and credit place name
  • • After you clear the map area, the previous square and drawn lines stay as a faint guide; work data is still discarded, and the guide clears when you select a new area.
  • • A manually edited credit place name is kept until you change the map area, so a new automatic name can be fetched for the new centre.
3D White Map Editor: subway separated from light and special railways
  • • Railway import now treats subway as its own level (Lv3), apart from light rail, tram, monorail, cableways, and other special lines (Lv4).
  • • Surface lines such as trams are no longer grouped with subway’s default underground look, so they stay raised with other surface infrastructure.
  • • Shinkansen, passenger rail, and abandoned/freight/construction levels stay as before; turn on Lv3 or Lv4 only when you need them.
R8 (2026).07.20NEW
Create GBM editor: 2D map image (.jpg) export added
  • • Added .jpg to the export formats. Save the 2D map together with the lines and area you drew, as a flat map image.
  • • While .png captures the 3D preview seen from directly above, .jpg gives you the 2D map with your drawn lines. Pick whichever fits your goal.
  • • Handy when you want a flat map for handouts or displays without using the 3D model.
R8 (2026).07.13FIXIMPROVE
Population Density Compare Map: fixed step dock on phones
  • • The bottom step bar is now pinned above a one-line ad band instead of sitting at the end of a scrollable page, so swiping no longer reveals a large empty navy gap and live ads do not cover the step buttons.
  • • Page-level scrolling is disabled on this tool; only the map and act panels scroll inside the workspace.
  • • The peek bar’s “choose a town to compare” and “compare with this town” buttons stay visible above the fixed dock when a town is selected.
R8 (2026).07.12FIXIMPROVE
Population Density Compare Map: mobile layout so the map and steps stay usable
  • • On phones, town details start as a short peek bar so the map keeps most of the screen; open details from “view details of your town,” or “widen the map” to collapse again.
  • • When only “your town” is set, the peek bar’s main button is “choose a town to compare,” which opens search right away; once a second town is selected, “compare with this town” leads into step 03.
  • • The bottom step bar sits in the visible screen above a reserved band for ads/browser chrome. On phones it shows “00 予想,” previous/next, the current step, and an “all steps” list; larger screens still show every step in one row.
R8 (2026).07.11NEWFIXIMPROVE
Population Density Compare Map: search by kana readings
  • • Town search now accepts hiragana and katakana as well as kanji names (prefix first, then partial match)—for example “せたがや” or “おくたま”.
  • • Readings come from the Ministry of Internal Affairs’ municipality code table and are stored offline with the town list, so no external geocoding is used.
  • • The search field placeholder now shows both a kanji and a kana example.
Population Density Compare Map: true-scale radius rings
  • • In “Your radius,” the rings are 100 m / 500 m / 1 km / 5 km, drawn at true distance on a shared scale with the town outline.
  • • Pointing at 100 m, 500 m, or 1 km on the side list zooms the diagram so 1 km fills the frame; pointing at 5 km or moving away returns to the 5 km view (with a short transition).
  • • The 100 m ring is drawn slightly larger for visibility; the population figure still uses a real 100 m radius.
  • • The closing question now asks how many minutes it takes to walk to school or the station, with a note that at a child’s walking pace about 10 minutes is roughly 700 m.
  • • The “save this question” button now turns green and says “saved,” with a short note that it went into the question pocket.
  • • Replaced the technical label “原器” with “わがまち” (your town) throughout the tool, so the comparison baseline is easier for children to understand.
Population Density Compare Map: your town carries forward; a second town is for compare
  • • Choosing a town in “Your radius” (by name or current location) now sets it as “わがまち,” so the map step keeps that baseline.
  • • Once “わがまち” is set, the map search looks for a town to compare, and the town card’s main button opens step 03 “くらべる” with that partner.
  • • You can still change “わがまち” from the card’s secondary button when needed.
  • • In the 1 km² people view, dense towns no longer stop at 900 dots: the panel grows downward so every dot (1 dot = 10 people) is shown.
  • • The same-scale outline view now uses a 5 km scale bar (was 2 km).
  • • The compare act is labeled “くらべる” everywhere (nav, headers, and buttons), instead of shorter “くらべ” or “くらべ台.”
  • • Fixed pale (nearly invisible) numbers in the compare table and other light act screens that were inheriting the site’s white body text.
  • • The compare table now also shows habitable-land share and density, town area and night population, day-vs-night population, 2050 projection with the change from 2020, and rankings by area and by population—each with a short plain-language note.
  • • Reordered the compare act: after the shape and 1 km² views comes the density-siblings question, then a short rankings table, then “area siblings” (towns of similar size), and finally the detailed ruler table.
  • • Questions now use a shared amber “問い” panel (navy bold question text)—distinct from blue info callouts—so the tool’s focus on questions is visible at a glance.
  • • Fixed the “living vs gathering” density ruler so labels and numbers no longer clip or overlap the explanation underneath.
  • • The density ruler now marks Japan’s average (about 338 people/km², with a “roughly one person on a schoolyard” hint), this town, and a full classroom as ○ / △ / □—and drops the Tokyo Dome point that sat too far up the scale. Labels use the familiar term “population density.”
  • • The map legend’s “DID line” now carries an asterisk note explaining that DID means Densely Inhabited District (a statistical threshold for areas where people live densely).
  • • At the end of step 03 “くらべる,” the main button now goes on to step 04 “レンズ,” instead of only returning to the map.
  • • Step 04 “レンズ” is clearer: choose a way of looking (baseline / flip / time / question the framing / connections), then only the lenses in that group. Spec codes stay hidden, the panel is shorter so more of the map shows, and the main button continues to step 05.
  • • Fixed a crash when opening “flip” or mesh lenses before the mesh map layer had finished loading.
  • • During step 04, the map chrome is shortened: search, town card, rulers, and the guess reconnect bar hide; only a one-line “わがまち,” a collapsed legend, and safety badges stay, so the lens panel and the map change stay in focus.
  • • The “color cutoffs” lens now shows the actual thresholds side by side (the usual 16·63·250… breaks versus the demo that lumps everything under 1,000 into one color), in plain language for children.
  • • Step 04 explanations now use an opaque white panel and darker type, so they stay readable over the dark map.
  • • Fixed overlapping text on the My Density Card so the intuition line no longer covers the date, sources, or Create GBM mark.
  • • Redesigned the My Density Card as a collectible: town silhouette in band colour, plain-language colour name, rank / space-per-person / DID status, one SPECIAL line that fits the town, plus intuition—keeping the Create GBM mark.
  • • Shortened the step 04 heading from “レンズの間” to “レンズ.”
  • • Renamed the step 05 heading from “当事者の間” to “当事者の選択.”
  • • Reordered step 05 tabs to “当事者の選択,” “マイ密度カードをつくろう,” “家族史,” and “問いポケット,” putting card-making earlier.
  • • My Density Card can now show a second card beside yours for the town you compared (from step 03, or picked on the spot).
  • • Swapped the last two step 05 tabs so “問いポケット” comes before “家族史.”
Population Density Compare Map: public release under Start Inquiry
  • • Opened the Population Density Compare Map to the public as one of the Start Inquiry tools, listed on the home page and the inquiry catalog next to the Climate Compare Map.
  • • Its address is /start-inquiry/density-map; the former /density-map address redirects there permanently.
  • • Search indexing and the site map are enabled, and the inquiry card uses a thumbnail from the map screen.
News archive: Population Density Compare Map public release recorded
  • • Added a July 11 news entry announcing the public release of the Population Density Compare Map, which nurtures attachment to “your town” through density comparison.
  • • The notice appears in the news archive and on the home news bar with other recent announcements.
R8 (2026).07.10IMPROVE
Population Density Compare Map: Create GBM tool chrome
  • • Restyled the Population Density Compare Map as a Create GBM interactive tool: navy workspace, numbered act headers, and a bottom act navigator that shows the current step in amber and visited steps in emerald.
  • • Restored the site header so visitors can move to other Create GBM pages from every act, including the opening guess screen.
  • • Unified buttons, key numbers, callouts, search, and the source ledger with the site brand palette, while keeping the map’s density colour bands unchanged.
  • • Clarified the opening prompt: choosing “your town” first lets you proceed with that town as the reference.
  • • After a guess is revealed, feedback now has five tiers—from an exact match to an order-of-magnitude miss—so the tone matches how far the intuition was.
  • • In “Your radius,” population inside each circle is now estimated by area share from the 500 m mesh (so a 100 m circle no longer jumps to zero), and pointing at a distance row lights the matching ring.
  • • The radius diagram now overlays a translucent outline of your town, centered on the same point as the circles (GPS fix or the selected town’s center).
R8 (2026).07.09NEWFIXIMPROVE
Climate Compare Map: Obihiro and Hita added as distinctive stations
  • • Added Obihiro (Tokachi basin) and Hita (Kyushu inland basin) to the distinctive-station layer on the Japan map, with verified Japan Meteorological Agency climate normals (1991-2020).
  • • Obihiro pairs naturally with Kushiro for contrasting Pacific-side and inland climates; Hita pairs with Oita for inland versus coastal readings in northern Kyushu.
  • • The distinctive-station count shown in the page header now reflects 20 locations, including the two new entries.
Climate Compare Map: 14 distinctive stations added across Japan
  • • Added Shirakawa, Onahama, Nikko, Hachinohe, Sakata, Joetsu (Takada), Suwa, Matsumoto, Iida, Hamamatsu, Tsuruga, Hamada, Uwajima, and Tosashimizu (Shimizu) as distinctive stations, each with Japan Meteorological Agency normals (1991-2020), including monthly mean daily max and min.
  • • Distinctive stations on the Japan map are now 34 in total; domestic normals cover 81 places. Station counts in the page header update from the data file automatically.
Climate Compare Map: world stations expanded (extremes and under-covered regions)
  • • Expanded the world map in three batches with verified WMO observed normals (1991-2020): extreme cold (Yakutsk, Verkhoyansk, Nuuk), extreme heat (Khartoum, Niamey), and new coverage across Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Africa, South America, and Central Eurasia.
  • • A third batch added 26 more cities—including Colombo, Ankara, Baghdad, Caracas, Montevideo, Kinshasa, Medellín, Recife, Lhasa, and Irkutsk—after testing every remaining candidate in the proposal list.
  • • The world map now loads climographs for 104 cities (up from 58), with only WMO-verified stations shown; candidates without a suitable observed station within range were dropped rather than estimated.
  • • The hero meta line now derives station counts from master_data.json (e.g. "47+20 domestic stations" and "104 world cities").
Climate Compare Map: mean daily max and min on comparison climographs
  • • Added monthly mean daily maximum and minimum temperatures from the same observed normals for 67 Japan stations, 98 world cities, and 8 Taiwan supplementary stations.
  • • When two places are selected for a rain-temperature comparison, each individual climograph overlays the max and min mean lines; the shared-scale overlay chart and hythergraphs show mean temperature only.
  • • Mean temperature stays a solid red line; mean daily max is a thinner orange dashed line and mean daily min a thinner indigo dashed line, with a compact legend on the chart.
Climate Compare Map: warm-day vs cool-day range overlay
  • • When two places are selected, a new shared-scale chart after the individual climographs shows semi-transparent bands between each month's average warmest and coolest days, with rainfall bars on the same chart.
  • • A thicker band means a bigger gap between warm and cool days that month; overlapping bands make it easy to see which place has the wider daily temperature swing.
  • • The chart title uses plain language for middle-school readers; image copy is supported like the other climographs.
Climate Compare Map: compact map control labels
  • • Renamed "Background" to "Background map" and shortened base-map buttons to Standard, Terrain, and Blank + zones; the control bar is now a single row.
  • • Climate zones and zone name labels are always shown on the map; the overlay toggles were removed.
  • • Choosing a place from the station list (or a map marker) now gently pans the map to that location, without changing the zoom level.
  • • Overlay and extreme-line legends sit without a framed plate: labels use a soft white halo so they blend into the chart. The temperature scale stays on the natural data range first, and only gains about 10°C of headroom when a label would otherwise sit on a line or band.
  • • The Clear selection control is a little more visible — soft slate fill and a firmer outline — so it reads as a reset without shouting.
  • • Clicking empty map areas or climate-zone fills no longer opens a popup; only city markers respond.
Climate Compare Map: Japan station list grouped by region
  • • Domestic station chips are now grouped under Hokkaido, Tohoku, Kanto, Chubu, Kinki, Chugoku, Shikoku, and Kyushu / Okinawa headings. Prefectural capitals and distinctive stations sit together in the same region.
  • • World-scope cities use a separate set of wide geographic headings (East Asia, Europe, Africa, and so on), not Japan’s regional labels. Russia is split east/west; Hawaii and Arctic Alaska are placed with Oceania and Polar / Other.
  • • The text filter above the list was removed; browsing by region is enough.
Climate Compare Map: temperature lines renamed “guide lines”
  • • Renamed the learner-drawn temperature lines on climographs from “reference lines” to “guide lines,” so the wording matches their role as a reading aid rather than a fixed standard.
Climate Compare Map: clearer “what to do next” guidance
  • • Added a short guidance bar above the scope controls that leads with “pick two places,” shows a 0/2 → 1/2 progress chip, and points to the map markers or the place-name list (A then B). After the first pick, it asks for the second place so the overlay comparison can begin.
  • • The empty chart panel now keeps only a quieter reminder and the note about colour intensity for data availability.
Climate Compare Map: temperature guide-line panel can be collapsed
  • • The temperature guide-line panel still opens by default, but learners who do not need it can collapse it to a compact header. Drawn lines stay on the charts, and the collapsed header shows the active values.
Climate Compare Map: printable worksheets for three school levels
  • • Added a Worksheet button on the chart toolbar. Choose “explore while using the map” (always available) or “analyse these two places” (when A and B both have data), then elementary, junior high, or senior high.
  • • Each option opens a print-ready A4 page you can save as PDF. Explore sheets leave place names blank for hands-on map work and add a second page of paste-ready climographs (filled when A and B are already selected). Compare sheets embed the selected climographs and level-specific reading tables on the main page.
Climate Compare Map: thumbnail refreshed
  • • Replaced the Climate Compare Map preview image on the homepage and inquiry catalog with a current screenshot that shows the world map, climograph comparison, and worksheet controls.
Climate Compare Map: removed duplicate bottom advertisement bar
  • • Removed the foldable bottom advertisement bar from the Climate Compare Map. An AdSense edge ad already rises from the bottom on that page, so the extra bar was redundant and got in the way of choosing places.
Climate Compare Map: three-locale copy parity
  • • Moved remaining Japanese-only UI strings (reading-table rows, empty-data notes, world-data notes, academic-reference body, worksheet print labels) into ja / en / zh-TW so English and Taiwan Mandarin (Traditional Chinese) match the Japanese interface.
News archive: Climate Compare Map public release recorded
  • • Added a July 7 news entry announcing the public release of the Climate Compare Map for reading climographs across Japan and the world.
  • • The notice appears in the news archive and on the home news bar with other recent announcements.
Climate Compare Map: all Taiwan stations use CWA open data
  • • Taipei, Taichung, Tainan, and Taitung now use Central Weather Administration climate normals (1991–2020) instead of WMO, so monthly mean daily max and min temperatures appear like the other Taiwan stations.
  • • Taiwan coverage is twelve stations in total, all from the same CWA open dataset; the world view, legend notes, and source block state that Taiwan data comes from CWA (OGDL), not WMO.
R8 (2026).07.08NEWFIXIMPROVE
Climate Compare Map: comparison UI, image copy, and guide lines
  • • Removed the "compare mode" and "shared scale" toggles — the map now always opens ready to compare two stations, since that is the purpose of the page.
  • • Charts always use a shared scale when two places are selected, so differences in temperature and rainfall read directly from bar height and line position.
  • • On-screen hints now explain that the first pick is A and the second is B.
  • • In the Japan scope, world-city markers no longer appear on the map; switching to World (globe) shows them again, and any world-city selection is cleared when returning to Japan.
  • • The legend's "Academic reference" block now collapses by default, matching the mechanism and source footnotes.
  • • Added compact copy buttons beside each climograph card (Station A, Station B, and the overlay) so charts can be pasted into lesson materials; if the clipboard is unavailable, the image downloads automatically.
  • • When two stations are selected, the overlay chart now appears first in the panel so the shared-scale comparison is the first thing you see.
  • • Added a panel for drawing your own high- and low-temperature guide lines on climographs—off by default, with annual-mean examples (22°C / 11°C) kept separate from the line you set. Lines appear on every chart and in copied images when drawn.
R8 (2026).07.07NEWIMPROVE
Inquiry Target Catalog: new "Climate Compare Map" for reading climographs
  • • Added a new interactive map for comparing climographs of 47 prefectural capitals and 10 distinctive stations such as Owase, Karuizawa, and Chichijima, built on verified Japan Meteorological Agency climate normals (1991-2020).
  • • Three base maps — standard, terrain, and a blank map with a climate-zone overlay whose boundaries are traced from real elevation data (mountain ridgelines and coastlines) for a clean, map-like finish. Also included: a two-station comparison mode with a shared scale, a hythergraph view, and an automatic reading table.
  • • Every chart carries its data source, and places without data are marked "not yet loaded" rather than filled with estimates. Switching to the world view turns the map into a globe where major national capitals can be read as climographs from WMO observed normals (a few capitals without a nearby station stay "not yet loaded"), each annotated with an auto-derived Köppen climate class.
  • • The world view can now overlay a world climate-zone (Köppen) map. It draws on a published dataset that covers almost the entire land surface of the world, including Antarctica and Greenland, and toggles the same way as the Japan climate-zone overlay for easy side-by-side reading.
  • • Added a Climate Compare Map card to the homepage "Start inquiry" row, using a real screenshot as the thumbnail; the inquiry catalog page now shows the same preview.
  • • Localized the interface for English and Taiwan Mandarin (Traditional Chinese), with locale-aware catalog links to the same content.
Climate Compare Map: Academic Editorial styling and explicit academic attribution
  • • Refined the page to match the site's Academic Editorial palette — navy hero, brand-blue accents, and elevated white panels — so the map reads as part of Create GBM rather than a standalone tool.
  • • Japan's six climate zones are now attributed to Hokkaido University's climate glossary (Prof. Shiro Tsuyuzaki, Graduate School of Environmental Earth Science, Hokkaido University), with a visible "academic reference" callout and linked citations in the legend, teacher notes, and footer.
  • • Location chips and map markers now use the same colours as the climate-zone legend (Japan) or Köppen groups A–E (world); paler tones mean "no data" instead of the earlier cryptic "not yet loaded" shorthand.
  • • Stations without normals are labelled "no data" throughout the list, charts, and tooltips — in Japan and world view alike.
  • • The hero badge now shows the live Japan station count (49 prefectural capitals including Saitama and Shiga alternates, plus 18 featured stations) instead of the outdated "47+18" label.
  • • Renamed the world scope toggle to "World (globe)" so it is clear the map switches to a globe view.
  • • Separated the Pacific-coast and Seto Inland Sea climate zones with distinct colours (vermillion orange vs bronze), plus solid vs dashed borders on the map and striped swatches in the legend.
  • • Fixed the Central Highland (inland) climate zone cutting off in a straight line near Kiryu, Gunma; it now follows the actual terrain east through the Nikko, Taishaku, and western Nasu highlands.
  • • Following the definition of the Central Highland climate (basins enclosed by high mountains) and the Japanese Wikipedia article on it, the Nagano and Kofu basins — previously missed by the elevation threshold — are now included; the heavy-snow Iiyama valley and points north stay on the Japan Sea side. The legend and teacher notes now state this reference explicitly.
Climate Compare Map: five more Taiwan cities and OGDL attribution
  • • The world view now includes eight more Taiwan cities from CWA observed climate normals (1991-2020): Keelung, Yilan, Chiayi, Kaohsiung, Alishan, Penghu, Hengchun, and Hualien.
  • • Penghu highlights the dry Taiwan Strait islands; Hengchun the tropical southern tip; Hualien the wet Pacific east coast—contrasts that read clearly against Taipei and the west coast.
  • • Taipei, Taichung, Tainan, and Taitung still use WMO observed normals. Taiwan CWA data keeps a short on-map credit and a separate OGDL attribution block apart from GSI and JMA credits.
Climate Compare Map: eight more featured Japan stations
  • • Added Asahikawa, Wakkanai, Kushiro, Hakodate, Nemuro, Minamitorishima, Aizu, and Maizuru as orange featured markers with verified JMA climate normals (1991-2020).
  • • Hokkaido now spans the north coast, inland basin, Pacific and Okhotsk sides, and the southern strait—so regional contrasts read more clearly on the map.
  • • Minamitorishima shows a “needs review” badge because monthly precipitation totals and the published annual value differ slightly beyond the usual rounding tolerance.
Climate Compare Map: world cities expanded for Köppen contrast
  • • Added 32 more world cities with verified WMO observed climate normals (1991-2020), bringing the world view to 58 locations with climographs—desert, tropical, polar, oceanic, and continental examples across the Köppen overlay.
  • • The United States now includes 17 cities from coast to coast (e.g. New York, Miami, Phoenix, Seattle, Anchorage, Honolulu, and Barrow); the United Kingdom adds Edinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester, and Cardiff alongside London.
  • • Sydney, Melbourne, Stockholm, Helsinki, Istanbul, Dubai, Manila, Santiago, Cape Town, and others fill gaps where climate zones were visible but no station data existed; New Delhi, Nairobi, Ottawa, and Toronto remain “no data” because no complete nearby WMO station was found.
Knowledge Repository: Weather Spark added to the weather and clouds layer
  • • Added Weather Spark (Japanese edition) to the "Weather and clouds" layer — one new resource for reading annual climate worldwide.
  • • Monthly charts, an interactive map, and side-by-side city comparison make it a readable entry point for practicing climograph reading alongside the Climate Compare Map.
R8 (2026).07.06FIX
3D white relief map editor: copyright marks on the back credit plate print correctly
  • • Fixed a defect where the two © marks in the data-attribution lines were rendered one row too low, crushing the word "Derived" beneath them and leaving empty gaps in their own line.
  • • The © ring and the C inside it no longer touch, so each mark comes out as a clear, readable symbol on FDM prints.
02MONTH

June 2026

R8 (2026).06.30IMPROVE
Knowledge Repository: one new entry on ocean currents at depth
  • • Added 1 new resource to the Weather and Clouds layer — an English article that walks through a depth-layered ocean-current animation, useful for comparing surface and deep flows near Japan and worldwide.
  • • Titles, descriptions, and inquiry tips are available in Japanese, English, and Taiwan Mandarin (Traditional Chinese).
R8 (2026).06.23NEWFIX
News archive: Create GBM recognized at the Learning Digital Teaching Materials Contest
  • • Added a June 23 news entry that Create GBM won the Gakujoken Award at the Reiwa 8 Learning Digital Teaching Materials Contest.
  • • The card links to the official awardee announcement on the Center for Learning Information Research website.
Home news bar: pinned announcements plus the three most recent
  • • Announcements now live in one shared list used by both the archive page and the home news bar, so a new entry only needs to be added once.
  • • The home bar always includes every pinned announcement and automatically rotates the three newest non-pinned items alongside them.
  • • The Gakujoken Award notice now appears on the home page as intended.
R8 (2026).06.17FIXIMPROVE
Site-wide: cleaner browser tab and search titles
  • • Page titles no longer repeat the site name; the browser tab and search results now show the page name followed by a single “Create GBM”.
  • • The full “Create GBM ACADEMIC NAVIGATOR” name is kept on the home page, so branding stays consistent without the earlier duplicated wording.
3D white relief map editor: fixed export stopping during credit plate generation
  • • Line wrapping for the embossed attribution text could loop without shortening the line and halt 3MF export partway through; wrapping now falls back to character-by-character breaks when softer splits make no progress.
  • • The printed data-source wording on the plate is unchanged.
3D white relief map editor: water parts stay inside the model body
  • • Water and other colour inlays no longer protrude through the underside when exporting very thin or uncorrected bases around sea-level terrain.
  • • Recessed water still follows the terrain surface, but the model underside remains clean in the slicer.
3D white relief map editor: clearer © ring on the bottom credit plate
  • • The two copyright marks on the embossed plate now use a smaller centred C inside a thicker filled ring, so the circle reads clearly after FDM printing without crowding the letter.
  • • The attribution wording on the plate is unchanged.
R8 (2026).06.16FIXIMPROVE
3D white relief map editor: tunnel cavity width matches line width
  • • When experimental tunnel carving is enabled, each bore now sizes automatically to the same width as the road or railway line it follows, so portal openings no longer look narrower than the dashed tunnel line on the model.
  • • The in-editor tunnel preview and 3MF export share the same width rule; the minimum printable diameter remains 0.4 mm.
3D white relief map editor: clearer bottom credit plate for printed models
  • • The embossed credit plate on the bottom of exported models now lists data sources in compact form and adds a short line stating the relief was derived by Create GBM.
  • • The wording fits the same three-line footprint as before, so the plate does not grow taller on print.
3D white relief map editor sources page: corrected DEM licence label
  • • The elevation-tile row on the editor sources page now cites the GSI Content Terms of Use (Fundamental Geospatial Data DEM) instead of the incorrect “PDL1.0” label.
R8 (2026).06.02NEWFIXIMPROVE
3D white relief map editor: tunnels that run inside the terrain (experimental)
  • • You can now carve a tunnel passage through the solid terrain while the familiar dashed tunnel line stays on the surface — a first step toward models where mountains and hills are not solid all the way through.
  • • Tunnel size follows each imported road or railway line width and its relief height, so the hollow reads clearly when you slice or print the model.
  • • Check the tunnel in the 3D preview before export; if a passage cannot be formed, the editor tells you on screen instead of delivering a solid block by surprise.
  • • Editing stays stable in tunnel-heavy areas, including when many OpenStreetMap roads and railways are loaded together.
  • • Updated the tunnel-cavity panel description and notices so they match current behaviour (minimum 0.4 mm diameter, minimum cover, and floor aligned with relief height).
3D white relief map editor: operation guide
  • • The in-editor guide now includes print simulation and export as steps ④ and ⑤, matching the streamlined workflow bar (no separate export-only button).
  • • A short note explains where to open simulation and export on desktop and on phones or tablets.
3D white relief map editor: stable palette colours in export
  • • Choosing the same named swatch (for example dark green) on different layers now always stores one fixed colour value, so the hue no longer drifts between items.
  • • 3MF export groups objects that share the same colour, so slicers such as Bambu Studio list fewer duplicate filaments for the same swatch.
02MONTH

May 2026

R8 (2026).05.31NEWFIXIMPROVE
3D white relief map editor: tunnels, portals, and station frames on imported roads and railways
  • • Road and railway segments inside tunnels now import as dashed lines in the same colour and width as the surface route; Shinkansen tunnels use a double-dash style.
  • • Tunnel dash spacing is tuned closer to national-map symbology; gaps are slightly widened so thick round line ends do not hide the space between segments.
  • • Under Emboss settings, Infrastructure now has a Tunnel subsection (default −0.2 mm recess); portal symbols follow the parent infrastructure height.
  • • The default recess for tunnel segments is now −0.2 mm instead of −0.4 mm.
  • • Tunnel portals render as solid bars at 90% of the parent line width so they read clearly in 3D without inheriting railway tie styling.
  • • Tunnel segments are recessed in the printed model, and explicit tunnel portals appear as short bars at each end.
  • • Subway lines are treated as underground by default; railway stations appear as rectangular outlines without building height.
  • • Cross-ties on general railways are drawn slightly longer sideways so embossed tracks stay recognizable at print widths thicker than on paper maps.
  • • The Infrastructure panel now notes a 0.4 mm minimum print width for reliable railway emboss (Lv2 defaults to 1.2 mm) and the 0.22 mm reference for flood-control lines.
  • • Credit-plate region names can be typed longer while converting hiragana to kanji; the dialog shows which prefix will actually be engraved on the bottom plate.
3D white relief map editor: flood-control and erosion-control structures from national vector maps
  • • Under Infrastructure, flood-control structures from the national optimized vector map use the same per-level controls as roads and railways: line width, colour, and on/off per level (all off by default).
  • • Checking a level no longer starts a fetch automatically; use the fetch button like roads and railways. Width and colour still update immediately in 3D preview.
  • • The wide-area caution no longer suggests missing data when features were found; a separate message appears only when the selected levels have none in the current area.
  • • Fine sabo structures such as Tateyama weirs now use the detailed source level consistently, so they no longer disappear simply because the selected area is wide.
  • • Wide teaching areas are no longer blocked for being “too large”; map tiles are fetched in order and merged, with progress shown by region.
  • • If the network fails or only part of the tiles arrive, a clear message appears instead of a silent empty map.
  • • Structures export as flat parts with an optional level top, one slicer object per level; natural waterfalls are excluded.
Faster, more reliable map-data fetching (roads, railways, water)
  • • Fetching roads, railways, and water now finishes faster and is far less likely to stall, even when the data service is busy.
  • • If a response is slow the editor switches route automatically, and on timeout it stops quickly and invites a retry; you can also cancel from the fetch button.
  • • Wide areas are fetched in parallel pieces with a visible progress count; if only part of a wide area succeeds, you are warned so missing lines are not mistaken for a complete map.
3D white relief map editor: support for generating very large 3MF files
  • • Dense teaching areas such as the Tateyama sabo region — with heavy terrain and many map layers enabled — can now be exported to 3MF through to the end far more reliably.
  • • Standard 3MF colour and per-part object separation are unchanged, so slicers such as Bambu Studio can still open the downloaded file.
3D white relief map editor: map credits for red relief and the 3D status bar
  • • When the 2D map uses the red relief layer, the corner credit now shows GSI Map Tiles on the first line and Asia Air Survey on the second, including the patent numbers for the red relief production method.
  • • The footer credit on the 3D view now lists GSI for elevation and map, OSM and GSI vector tiles for water and infrastructure, and adds the Asia Air Survey patent line when a red relief overlay is applied to the terrain.
  • • On Start Inquiry, the “blank map” mode footer now credits GSI for the blank basemap and Asia Air Survey for the red relief overlay, including the patent numbers for the production method.
Homepage: fixed ad frames at each major section break
  • • The top page now places manual display ads only in five shared frames between major sections (Start Inquiry, Modes, Create GBM, Intelligence, and below the colophon), instead of scattered in-page auto inserts.
  • • Anchor ads at the screen edge are unchanged; tool and simulation pages still load no ad script.
  • • Empty slots stay collapsed until an ad actually renders, so large blank boxes do not appear between sections.
R8 (2026).05.30FIXIMPROVE
3D white relief map editor: two recess depths for water, hand-drawn lines, map symbols, and admin boundaries
  • • The Relief extrusion panel now offers -0.2 mm and -0.4 mm recess for water, hand-drawn lines (parent and per-group), map symbols, and administrative boundaries — not only for water as before.
  • • Print simulation now shows recess the same way as export, so a negative setting is visible before you download.
  • • Infrastructure, slope zones, elevation bands, and the historical-visualization preset are unchanged.
3D white relief map editor: railways reorganised into five OpenStreetMap levels
  • • Railways in the infrastructure panel are now five levels: Shinkansen, passenger lines (JR and private), metro and light transport (including ropeways), special narrow-gauge and heritage lines, and a separate level for disused lines, freight-only track, and lines under construction.
  • • Only Shinkansen and passenger lines are on by default; metro, light transport, special lines, and disused or freight track stay off until you turn them on.
  • • Disused railways tagged the way mappers recommend today are included so abandoned lines are less likely to be missed.
3D white relief map editor: fixed railway level 5 fetch failing
  • • Fetching only disused, freight, or under-construction railways no longer fails with a connection error; those lines can be imported when you turn level 5 on.
3D white relief map editor: special railway level default style
  • • Special railways (narrow-gauge, preserved, and miniature lines) now default to 0.6 mm width and a light purple colour so they read apart from passenger and metro lines.
R8 (2026).05.28NEWFIXIMPROVE
"Operational Semantics" v1.0 codified — a third brand design principle for operation-focused interactive tools, alongside "Academic Editorial" and "Reference Architecture"
  • • The colour and feedback system used in the 3D white relief map editor workflow has been formally named "Operational Semantics" v1.0 — the third brand design principle. It sits beside Academic Editorial v1.0 (main content pages) and Reference Architecture v1.0 (PROJECT and LAW pages). All three share the same brand tokens but serve different purposes.
  • • Decision rule: if a surface is primarily for operating, stepping through work, or reading live tool feedback, apply Operational Semantics; if it defines or regulates, apply Reference Architecture; if it narrates or invites exploration, apply Academic Editorial.
  • • Five core elements: (1) shared semantic tokens in code; (2) colour families for current, done, informative, disabled, and danger; (3) mandatory triple channel — label, shape or icon, and colour; (4) step and cycle vocabulary for workflow chrome; (5) a hard boundary between map or terrain content colours and UI chrome semantics.
  • • A Cursor rule (.cursor/rules/operational-semantics.mdc) and README three-principle overview document this standard for future editor, simulation, and lab tools. Narrative and reference pages are explicitly out of scope.
In-page ads now start sooner without interrupting the opening view
  • • Adjusted manual AdSense loading so ads begin preparing immediately after the first page paint, improving the chance that the slot is ready when readers reach it.
  • • The ad locations, labels, page spacing, and tool-page exclusions are unchanged.
Ad slots now retry once automatically when the first attempt produces a blank
  • • When AdSense reports no fill for a slot, the slot element is refreshed and a second request is made automatically — without a page reload.
  • • Detection is instant: a MutationObserver watches for AdSense to finish processing, rather than waiting a fixed number of seconds.
  • • If the second attempt also has no inventory, the slot collapses silently; no blank grey block is left on the page.
  • • Added backup timing so the first ad request still runs when the script finishes slightly after the slot appears on screen.
  • • Fixed a bug where a large empty panel with only the “Ad” label appeared before any creative loaded; the slot now expands only after real ad content is present.
  • • Fixed site security settings that were blocking required Google ad services, so in-page ads can load instead of failing silently in the browser console.
3D white relief map editor: function names always visible on the left toolbar
  • • Each button on the left toolbar now shows a short function name under its icon, so first-time users can tell what each tool does without hovering.
  • • On phones and tablets, abbreviated labels keep the bar compact; on desktop, full names are shown.
  • • Labels follow your site language (Japanese, English, or Taiwan Mandarin).
3D white relief map editor: workflow guide, grouped tools, and always-on map hints
  • • A four-step workflow bar now stays visible under the header so learners always see whether to select an area, edit the map, check 3D, or export.
  • • The left toolbar is grouped into Select, Draw, View, and Settings so related tools are easier to find.
  • • The map and 3D panels show a short hint for the current tool and how to move the map, replacing tips that used to disappear after a few seconds.
  • • The Draw and 3D steps are now grouped with curved arrows and a repeat label so learners see they can switch back and forth while refining the model.
  • • Workflow step labels now say where you work—write on the map and check in 3D—and the loop caption reads "Repeat" so the action is clearer.
  • • Rebalanced the map and 3D step widths and added right-side spacing so the Export step stays visible beside the inquiry chat button.
  • • The repeat hint between map and 3D now sits on one row with the steps so the workflow bar uses less vertical space.
  • • The workflow bar now keeps a permanent gap for the inquiry chat button on the right and uses clearer spacing between steps.
  • • On your first visit, a short spotlight tour points to each key control—select an area, switch map and 3D, draw tools, and export.
  • • The map-style control in the toolbar now opens the same kind of option bar above the map as line and symbol tools.
  • • PNG export now saves a straight-down view of the 3D relief preview instead of a flat copy of the 2D map editor.
  • • The workflow now includes step 4 Print simulation with text labels; simulate and download moved out of the header gear icon. Export without opening simulation asks for confirmation first.
R8 (2026).05.27IMPROVE
3D white relief map editor: public-facing export credits and 3MF-only CREDITS.txt
  • • Export dialog and bundled CREDITS.txt now list only the data providers in use (GSI elevation, OpenStreetMap when present, Wikidata when heritage is included) — not per-layer processing steps.
  • • GLB, STL, OBJ, and PNG no longer trigger a separate CREDITS.txt download; the credits file ships inside 3MF zip exports only.
  • • Inside 3MF archives, README.md and palette.json now match the actual printed objects with plain-language names and colours; slicer object labels no longer show internal codes such as terrain_base or INFRA.
  • • The editor sources page explains how each dataset is processed; the export dialog links there for full detail.
Manual AdSense placements added to reading pages and Create Terrain entry points
  • • Added a responsive display ad unit only after key content blocks: the Create Terrain flagship editor card, the home Create GBM section, the FAQ answers, and the definition page pathway cards.
  • • Tool and simulation pages remain ad-free, so the 3D white relief map editor, GeoLab, and map simulations are not interrupted during hands-on work.
  • • The placement keeps ads in-page and away from hero openings, matching the plan to avoid unclear pop-up style advertising.
  • • Adjusted in-page ad loading so new placements are less likely to stay empty until the page is refreshed.
  • • When an ad slot has no inventory or the script is blocked, the panel now collapses instead of leaving a large grey block on the page.
Modes of Inquiry now describes its mission flow as guided missions, not AI-guided missions
  • • Updated the Modes of Inquiry hero and mission introduction so the static v1→v2→v3 practice flow is labelled as a guided mission.
  • • The separate AI inquiry chat remains available, but the mission preview no longer implies that AI is actively generating each step.
Modes of Inquiry (read mode): clearer Jomon settlement example
  • • Rewrote the problem-solving walkthrough for why Jomon sites appear on uplands and tongue-shaped terraces, balancing food access with safety.
  • • Updated each step—ideal, present conditions, constraints, decision, and outcome—so the logic is easier to follow in class.
  • • Added a closing note on how farming later drew settlements from uplands toward the plains.
  • • The task step now asks where food access and a safe, stable life can both be met, matching the revised problem statement.
Footer masthead: Since date now matches the official portal launch
  • • The footer "Since" line now reads 2026.01.15, aligned with the changelog entry for the Create GBM portal public launch.
  • • Copyright years were updated to 2026 so they match the formal publication year (build work in Dec 2025 is not shown as the public start).
R8 (2026).05.26FIXIMPROVE
3D white relief map editor: elevation-band colouring now carries reliably into every export format
  • • Elevation bands could be visible in the editor but missing from exported files when a band was adjusted immediately before download.
  • • The active elevation band now reaches 3MF / GLB / STL / OBJ / PNG export and the print simulation through the same output list.
  • • The Output Settings object list now shows the current elevation band before download, making it clear which colour bands will reach the slicer or image export.
R8 (2026).05.24NEWIMPROVE
3D white relief map editor: clearer data-source credits and bundled CREDITS.txt
  • • The status bar and map corner now credit only the sources actually in use for your session — GSI elevation and basemap tiles, OpenStreetMap for water and infrastructure when fetched, and Wikidata when heritage points are present.
  • • The export dialog lists applicable data sources before download. Every export format now includes a CREDITS.txt file (.3mf bundles it inside the zip; other formats download it as a companion file).
  • • A new public sources page documents what the editor fetches and how Create GBM processes each dataset. Terms of Use §04 has been revised to match the editor's actual data sources.
  • • The bottom credit plate on printed models now lists GSI, GSI vector experiment, and OpenStreetMap sources in compact form, with the OpenStreetMap copyright URL; long lines wrap automatically so the plate width stays unchanged. The © symbol on the plate is slightly enlarged so it reads clearly when embossed.
3D white relief map editor: tutorial videos on the homepage and Create Terrain page
  • • The flagship editor card on the homepage and on Create Terrain now includes tutorial video links — the first walks through how to read terrain in the 3D view; a second operations guide is marked coming soon.
  • • Videos open on YouTube in a new tab so you can watch while keeping the editor page open.
Create Terrain page: one global download counter instead of two
  • • The dark hero at the top of Create Terrain used to repeat the same worldwide download total that already appears on the 3D white map editor card below. The hero counter has been removed so the opening view stays focused on the page message.
  • • The counter on the editor flagship card is unchanged — you can still open the format and country breakdown from there.
R8 (2026).05.19NEWFIXIMPROVE
3D white relief map editor: manual place search now has its own category
  • • Points added through name search in Historic sites and natural monuments are no longer labelled as nationally designated historic sites. They appear under a separate Manual search category with a distinct marker colour.
  • • Running automatic retrieval again no longer removes places you added by hand.
  • • Map pop-ups for manual points note that the location comes from OpenStreetMap name geocoding, not from an official cultural-property designation.
3D white relief editor: per-group relief height for hand-drawn lines
  • • In Relief settings, hand-drawn lines keep a parent default; each line group can override height and whether the stroke reads flat or rounded. Groups without an override still follow the parent.
  • • When a group has its own setting, the shared parent no longer applies; reset returns that group to the shared default.
  • • The historical-visualisation preset still sets every hand-drawn line to the same recommended height; any group you customise afterward keeps its own value.
3D white relief editor: map symbols can stand slightly taller in the historical preset
  • • Relief settings for map symbols now include a slightly taller raise option when landmarks need to read above hand-drawn routes.
  • • The “Set recommended values for historical visualisation” preset applies that taller setting to map symbols so historic sites stand clearer above routes.
  • • The Relief panel layer list now follows the sidebar order, with the map-symbol flat-top option always visible and off by default.
3D white relief editor: slope, elevation, and region-colour panels easier to scan
  • • Flat, gentle, moderate, and steep slope bands each sit in their own card with a colour swatch, a “Show” checkbox, angle fields, and colour controls grouped together.
  • • Elevation bands use the same card layout; nothing tints the map until you add a band and turn Show on.
  • • Region colour uses a dedicated “Draw on map” mode: enclose an area on the map, then tint only the interior (separate from hand-drawn lines).
  • • The “Surround and color” control now starts with display off; new regions stay hidden on the map until you turn display on.
  • • Steep slope is now 15° up to (but not including) 53°; a new grey “rocky steep slope” band covers 53° and above.
  • • The flat slope band now defaults to the light-tea preset (terrain only, separate from road colours).
  • • OSM roads default to a yellow–orange scale like road atlases (expressways orange → local roads pale yellow), avoiding greens and browns already used on terrain.
  • • The 3D print simulation now tints elevation bands and region colour the same way as slope zones (toggle: Slope / elevation / region colour).
  • • When slope, elevation, and region colour overlap, the stack is fixed: slope at the bottom, elevation bands above, region colour on top.
3D white relief editor: OSM road colours follow atlas-style yellow and orange
  • • Road levels no longer use brown or green: Lv1–Lv2 orange tones, Lv3 yellow, Lv4 pale yellow (lightest).
  • • Railways use near-black for Shinkansen, navy for conventional lines, and grey for light transit — distinct from road yellows and terrain browns.
  • • Fixed Lv1–Lv2 roads that could still show the old light-tea colour; stale line data is corrected automatically.
  • • Fixed an error that could stop the editor from opening after the road colour update.
  • • The in-editor page title now matches the official name in each language (Japanese: 3D白地図エディター).
Create Terrain landing page: worldwide download total now visible on the flagship card
  • • On large screens the worldwide export total appeared only in the dark hero, so it was easy to miss after scrolling to the white flagship card.
  • • The same total and breakdown toggle now sit on the 3D white relief editor card; expanding the breakdown shows how exports split by format and region just below the card.
News: Geo Exhibition 2026 exhibit and GSI Maps Fan Club talk
  • • Added an announcement for exhibiting Create GBM at Geo Exhibition 2026 (28 April).
  • • Added an announcement for a presentation on the 3D White Map Editor at a GSI Maps Fan Club regular meeting (23 May), with a link to the related post.
  • • The home-page news ticker shows the same two items.
R8 (2026).05.06IMPROVE
Added a "Set recommended values for historical visualisation" preset button to the Relief panel
  • • A single button in the 造形の盛り上げ (Relief) panel now applies a tuned set of extrusion values for maps that centre on historical information: water recessed −0.2 mm (flat), OSM infrastructure raised 0.4 mm (flat), hand-drawn lines 0.6 mm (dome), map symbols 1.0 mm (flat, with peak-align enabled), and administrative boundaries 0.2 mm (flat).
  • • The values express a deliberate depth hierarchy — map symbols stand tallest, hand-drawn historic routes rise above infrastructure, and water sits below the terrain surface — so the printed relief map conveys historical importance through physical height as well as colour.
  • • All settings remain individually adjustable after the preset is applied. The defaults for a new session are unchanged.
Home page flagship card now names every export format the editor offers
  • • The tag under the 3D white relief map editor on the home page listed only three formats even though the tool saves to the full range of download options, including flat images for print.
  • • The tag line now matches the formats visitors will see in the editor’s export menu.
R8 (2026).05.05FIXIMPROVE
Print simulation now shows hand-drawn lines, map symbols, and administrative boundaries by default — the LINE drawing extrude finally takes visible effect on first open
  • • In the print simulation, the toggles for ライン描画 (hand-drawn lines), 地図記号 (map symbols), and 行政区分 (administrative boundaries) used to default to OFF, while インフラ表現 (OSM-imported infrastructure) defaulted to ON. Hand-drawn content was therefore invisible until users found and switched on each toggle, which made the editor's LINE / 地図記号 elevation sliders look as if they had no effect.
  • • All four user-content toggles now default to ON in the print simulation, matching the インフラ表現 default. Lines drawn on the map, map symbols stamped on the map, and any configured administrative boundary lines now appear immediately, and their elevation values from the editor's 「造形の盛り上げ」 panel are visible at first glance.
  • • Each toggle remains available to be switched off when comparing layers in isolation. The change is a default only; saved sessions are unaffected.
Download counters in the editor and on the Create Terrain landing page no longer show a misleading "0 件" before the upstream counter is online
  • • The editor's output dialog used to render "this format has been downloaded 0 times / 0 in total" whenever the aggregated counter Worker was unset or unreachable, even though that "0" was a placeholder, not a real measurement. Visitors could read it as "no one has used this", which is the opposite of what the line is meant to communicate.
  • • The aggregated stats endpoint now returns an explicit availability flag. When the upstream counter is offline, the editor hides the counter line entirely, and the Create Terrain landing page shows the existing "Counter coming online" message in place of the big number and the breakdown toggle.
  • • Once the counter Worker is connected and starts recording, the editor line and the landing-page summary both light up automatically with the real totals — no further code change needed.
Top-down texture PNG export now includes hand-drawn lines, OSM infrastructure, and optional slope / elevation tints
  • • The plan-view PNG used to composite only the GSI basemap, water, a single combined road mask, administrative boundaries, and map symbols. Roads and railways imported from OpenStreetMap lived in separate infra masks for 3D output and never reached the PNG, so downloaded images often lacked those lines entirely.
  • • The PNG pipeline now reuses the same per-group rasters as solid-model export, stacking masks in the same order as the editor (water, infrastructure, administrative boundaries, hand-drawn lines, map symbols). When slope zones or elevation zones are enabled, their tint overlays appear on the PNG as well.
R8 (2026).05.01FIXIMPROVE
3D white relief map editor thumbnail refreshed with a lighter, current editor screenshot
  • • The flagship card on the Create Terrain page now uses a current screenshot of the 3D white relief map editor instead of the older video thumbnail, so visitors can see the present map, simulation, layer controls, and export workflow at a glance.
  • • The image has been compressed into a local WebP asset, keeping the page lightweight while matching the way other thumbnails are served from the site itself.
3MF export download now keeps the generated file reference alive long enough for large browser downloads
  • • Fixed a browser-side failure that could appear after 3MF compression, especially with heavy road / railway / water / symbol exports. The file was generated, but the browser could lose access to the temporary download reference before the download subsystem had fully opened it.
  • • The generated 3MF download URL is now released after a short safety window instead of immediately after the click, so large multi-object files can be handed off to the browser reliably.
3MF colour palette restored — Bambu Studio / Orca Slicer now load each part with its assigned filament colour again
  • • Fixed a regression where every imported part appeared in a single solid colour because the slicer's recent project-filament validation rejected the embedded palette as incomplete. The exported project now declares matching filament settings IDs, types, and basic profile fields alongside the colour list, so the slicer accepts the project filaments and assigns one to each object on import.
  • • Fixed a related issue where road / railway level colour edits could be lost if the user clicked download within a fraction of a second of changing a colour. The export now flushes any pending colour / width changes synchronously before building the 3MF, so the file always carries the latest palette.
Imported roads and railways now appear in the 3D preview as soon as the import finishes
  • • Fixed a regression where freshly-imported road / railway lines did not appear on the 3D view at all, leaving the editor effectively unusable for that workflow. The infrastructure layer was being rendered through an off-thread compositing path that could silently drop its first batch in some browser conditions.
  • • The compositing now runs reliably on the main thread again, with the per-level cache that was already in place to keep editing responsive. Adjusting widths and colours stays smooth thanks to the existing throttle, and the 3D preview reflects new imports immediately.
3MF colour palette fully fixed — the project header is now declared so Bambu Studio / Orca Slicer accept the multi-colour list and assign one filament per part on import
  • • Diagnosed by reading the slicer's own loader directly: it only treats the embedded settings as a project palette when the file declares itself with a top-level project header. Without that header, the palette is parsed but never reaches the project filament list, and every part falls back to the user's single default filament — exactly the "all parts in one solid colour" symptom that persisted after the previous round of fixes.
  • • The 3MF's project settings file now carries the same project header that the slicer's own exporter writes, plus the matching material identifier alongside the preset name and colour. With these in place the slicer recognises the project palette, populates the project filament list, and links each imported part to its assigned filament slot on first open.
  • • Files that were exported before this fix will still import as monochrome — they need to be exported again from the editor to receive the new palette declaration.
3D white relief map editor defaults refreshed — current thumbnail on the home page, Lv2 as the recommended map-symbol size, and a light-brown default for roads and railways
  • • The top page now uses the same current 3D white relief map editor thumbnail as the Create Terrain page, replacing the old video still so the flagship card reflects the actual editor screen.
  • • Map symbols now start at Lv2 (about 5 mm) as the recommended size. Lv1 and Lv3 remain available when a smaller or larger symbol is needed.
  • • The road and railway palettes now include light brown, brown, and dark brown. Light brown is the new default for imported OSM roads and railways, while the darker tone remains available as a preset for stronger contrast.
3MF colour handling simplified to the open standard path — each exported object now carries its own standard 3MF colour group
  • • Stopped pretending that Create GBM exports are native Bambu Studio project files. The slicer treats files marked as Bambu-made through a private compatibility path, and in that path it ignores standard colour groups unless the private metadata exactly matches the slicer version.
  • • The exported 3MF now uses the simple standard mechanism instead: each object has a one-colour `m:colorgroup`, and the object itself points to that colour with `pid` / `pindex`. Bambu Studio and Orca Slicer therefore import the file as an ordinary coloured multi-object 3MF, with each part visually separated and selectable for manual filament assignment.
  • • Private Bambu metadata files are no longer written. This makes the file less clever but much more robust: object separation and visible per-object colours no longer depend on reverse-engineered slicer internals.
3MF models now slice cleanly in Bambu Studio / Orca Slicer — fixed an inlay-vs-terrain volumetric overlap that could freeze the slicer at 5%
  • • Coloured parts — water, line drawings, infrastructure, slope zones, elevation zones — were silently poking one inlay-depth into the terrain volume at the boundary of every coloured area. Bambu Studio tried to resolve the overlap with boolean operations across millions of triangles per object and the export would appear frozen at about 5% slicing progress.
  • • The bottom face of each coloured part is now aligned to the terrain's real top vertex by vertex, so the inlay collapses to zero thickness exactly at its outer edge instead of dipping below the terrain. There is no remaining volumetric overlap between the terrain and any coloured object.
  • • Slicing now completes normally in Bambu Studio and Orca Slicer for the same multi-zone exports that previously froze. Files exported before this fix must be re-exported from the editor to receive the corrected geometry.
Two parts that happen to share a default colour no longer collapse into a single filament slot in Bambu Studio — each object now reliably lands on its own filament
  • • The default colour for the credit-plate part (light green) coincided with the default colour for the "incline slope" zone, and Bambu Studio's auto-colour-import would silently merge the two into one filament slot. Users who wanted to print the slope and the credit panel in different filaments had no way to assign them separately after import.
  • • The 3MF exporter now detects colour duplicates at export time and shifts later occurrences by one step in a single channel — visually indistinguishable (∆ ≤ 1/255) but treated as a distinct colour by the slicer's matching logic. Every object thus receives its own filament slot.
  • • This works for any duplicate, not just the credit-plate / slope pair. Even if a user picks the same custom colour for two different parts, the export still preserves an independent slot per part for manual filament assignment after import.
Adjacent coloured regions (Lv1/Lv2 OSM roads, 傾斜/急傾斜 slope zones, etc.) no longer overlap volumetrically at their shared boundary, finishing the Bambu Studio slicing-stall fix
  • • Even after the earlier inlay-vs-terrain fix, two adjacent coloured regions still both claimed the boundary quad they shared (because the inlay quad-mask used an OR-of-corners rule). At the quad centre each region kept around a quarter-millimetre of overlapping volume, and across a typical map this produced tens of thousands of overlap micro-prisms. Bambu Studio's boolean disambiguation could not keep up, and the slice would stall near 5% — even on the fixed multi-zone biwako export.
  • • Quad ownership is now resolved in a single priority pass before mesh generation: heritage > drawn lines > admin > OSM infrastructure (新幹線→鉄道→小型→Lv1→Lv4) > water > elevation zones > slope zones. Every boundary quad is owned by the highest-priority inlay present at any of its four corners; lower-priority neighbours yield the quad entirely.
  • • The claiming inlay's bottom face is now driven by the union of all coloured masks instead of its own mask alone, so its base sits flush on the carved terrain at every corner (including corners that belong to a yielded neighbour). Result: no inter-inlay overlap, no air gap toward terrain, only a sub-pixel "bleed" of the higher-priority colour into the lower-priority region at the boundary — invisible in print at typical resolutions, and the slicer no longer has to do CGAL boolean disambiguation across millions of triangles.
Erasing part of a slope-zone overlay with the brush now carries through to 3MF / GLB / STL / OBJ exports — the file matched the 3D preview before only for water and admin lines, not for flat / gentle / steep slope masks
  • • The live 3D preview subtracted the eraser from flat, gentle, and steep slope zone masks, but the export pipeline rebuilt slope masks from the DEM alone, so carved slope inlays could reappear in the downloaded model even though they looked gone on screen.
  • • Export now resamples the same editor-resolution erase bitmaps onto the export grid before mesh generation, using the same geographic mapping already used for water and administrative boundary erasing.
3D white relief editor — rolled back the May "Phase 3" UI lightweighting: the live preview always stays at full mesh resolution again, and OSM road / railway width and colour changes apply to LineGroups immediately
  • • Half-resolution terrain preview while dragging sliders, sweeping the eraser, or right after a road or railway fetch is removed. The 3D view again matches export detail at all times during editing.
  • • The 220 ms batching of LineGroup updates for infrastructure +/- and colour pickers is removed; every change runs the full preview pipeline immediately, as before Phase 3.
3MF export colours are literal again — the exporter no longer nudges duplicate hex values so that every object forced a separate filament slot in Bambu Studio
  • • The previous release silently shifted later objects by one RGB step whenever two parts shared the same `#RRGGBB`, so auto colour import always opened with one slot per object.
  • • That behaviour is removed: each part now carries exactly the colour chosen in the editor. When two defaults still coincide, the slicer may merge them into one filament until you assign materials manually — a simpler, more predictable file.
Coloured inlay parts are once again simple closed shells — slicing now completes reliably even on multi-zone exports that previously stalled in Bambu Studio
  • • The May fixes that fitted each inlay's bottom face to the carved terrain per vertex were producing coincident coplanar triangles around the boundary of every coloured object. Bambu Studio reported the result as hundreds of thousands of non-manifold edges and either stalled the slice or required a heavy auto-repair.
  • • Each inlay's bottom is once again a single flat plane at terrain − inlay depth. The intentional one-millimetre overlap with surrounding terrain at boundary quads is well within slicer tolerance and the meshes are manifold by construction. Adjacent coloured regions may share a small boundary overlap as well; that has always been acceptable for printing and was not the cause of the original 5%-stall behaviour.
  • • Files exported before this fix should be re-exported to receive the simpler geometry.
02MONTH

April 2026

R8 (2026).04.30NEWIMPROVE
A new "Definition · FAQ · Compare" trio that becomes the centre of how Create GBM is described — and the old "About the Project" page is folded into it
  • • A single canonical definition page has been added at /definition. It carries the core definition, the extended definition, and the tagline of Create GBM as one fixed block of text — every other page that cites the definition now reads from the same source string, so the wording can never drift. The page has also been given a stronger visual hierarchy: large dark opening, modern white card, rounded definition panels, and pathway cards that make the formal content easier to scan.
  • • A new FAQ page at /faq groups about twenty short questions into five themes (basics, concepts and learning, analysis, comparison, and use in education). The top standard definition and every answer now use the same boxed definition treatment as /compare: a short definition callout first, followed by a plain explanatory sentence. Non-canonical FAQ definitions use polite Japanese consistently, while the fixed Create GBM definition remains unchanged. The same questions are also published as FAQPage structured data so that AI assistants can quote them directly.
  • • A new comparison page is published at /compare (no longer under /project/) and clarifies what Create GBM is by clarifying what it is not — versus GIS, versus 2D maps, versus 3D map viewers, and versus generic 3D Terrain models — so that AI tools answering "what is Create GBM" do not blur it into adjacent categories. Each comparison now presents the definition sentence in a separate boxed callout and uses polite Japanese consistently; the whole Definition / FAQ / Compare trio now shares one modern, high-contrast reading system rather than feeling like a plain reference sheet. Small section labels were also cleaned up so the decorative rule is not followed by a second dash. The previous /project/compare URL still works and now permanently redirects to /compare.
  • • The "About the Project" page (/about-project) has been retired. Its project explanation, "what you can do here" block, data sources and credits, and changelog call-to-action have all been folded into /definition (and into /en/definition and /zh-TW/definition for the locale mirrors). The old three-pillar phrasing has been reworked into four pathways — reading terrain conditions, testing with simulations, creating 3D white relief maps, and connecting to resources — so making things is treated as a core part of Create GBM rather than an afterthought. The credits paragraph now foregrounds the educational vision: learning history through 3D terrain as a way to approach people's thoughts and values in a region. The old URL permanently redirects to /definition in every locale, so existing external links and bookmarks continue to work.
  • • A minimum English version of the definition is published at /en/definition, and a Taiwan Mandarin (Traditional Chinese) mirror at /zh-TW/definition. Both link back to the Japanese source-of-truth page.
  • • The homepage now exposes the same definition as DefinedTerm and AboutPage entries in its structured-data graph, and a small /llms.txt has been published so that large-language-model crawlers can retrieve the canonical wording as plain text without parsing HTML.
  • • The Project column of the footer is now ordered: 1. What Create GBM is (Definition), 2. FAQ, 3. Compare, 4. News, 5. Changelog. FAQ and Compare appear in Japanese only for now; English and Taiwan Mandarin (Traditional Chinese) show What Create GBM is + News + Changelog and reach the localised definition through the language switcher and from /definition itself.
"Reference Architecture" v1.0 codified — a second brand design principle that governs all PROJECT and LAW pages, distinct from "Academic Editorial" v1.0 for content pages
  • • The design system built for Definition, FAQ, Compare, News, Changelog, Terms of Use, and Privacy Policy has been formally named "Reference Architecture" v1.0 and set as a standing operating principle, parallel to the existing "Academic Editorial" v1.0 that governs main content pages. The two principles share the same brand tokens but are otherwise different systems, with a clear decision rule: pages that primarily define, document, or regulate use Reference Architecture; pages that inspire, explore, or narrate use Academic Editorial.
  • • Reference Architecture is built around five core elements: (1) SeoPageShell — a shared page shell that scopes decorative overlays inside the hero so the footer is never tinted; (2) SectionHeader — a numbered chip + eyebrow + h2 heading that gives long-form reference pages a scannable rhythm; (3) a mandatory in-page table of contents at the top of every content card; (4) a Definition callout box that frames canonical text without altering it; and (5) SeoLinkRow — a two-column button row that splits the label and the path onto separate lines.
  • • The new visual system has been applied to all six page groups: the definition trio (/definition · /faq · /compare), the news archive (/news), the development changelog (/changelog), and the legal documents (/terms-of-use · /privacy-policy). All locale mirrors (Japanese / English / Taiwan Mandarin) receive the same treatment through shared components.
  • • A Cursor rule file (.cursor/rules/reference-architecture.mdc) has been published to enforce this principle on all future edits to PROJECT and LAW pages, including a distinction table, component reference, typography guide, and decision rule for agents.
Primary navigation label refined — the "Start Inquiry" entry in the header, footer, and hero now reads "Begin Exploring" for a more inviting tone
  • • The main entry point labelled "探究する" in Japanese — visible in the top navigation, the site footer, the hero call-to-action, and the home section heading — has been updated to "探究をはじめる". The change signals an open invitation rather than a plain verb, and is consistent across all four surfaces.
  • • The card link text inside the inquiry listing pages ("探究する →") has also been updated to match.
Global download counter for the 3D white relief map editor — total exports plus per-format and per-country breakdown
  • • Each time someone exports a relief map from the editor (.3mf / .glb / .stl / .obj / .png), an aggregate counter is recorded — total, by format, and by country. The Output Settings dialog now shows how many times the chosen format has been downloaded and the worldwide total alongside it.
  • • The Create Terrain landing page now also shows the worldwide total, with a "See breakdown" button that reveals two horizontal bar charts: downloads by format, and the top 10 countries / regions. Both charts read from the same live counter.
  • • Privacy: only aggregated counts are stored. No IP addresses, no user agents, no sessions, no fingerprints. The country dimension is read on the edge from the request itself and is never transmitted by the browser.
3D white relief map editor — Performance pass: width / colour edits no longer freeze the editor when many infrastructure objects are loaded
  • • Editing the print width or colour of a road / railway level used to walk every imported OSM stroke and rebuild the entire stroke array on every keystroke or held-arrow tick. Width and colour are now read from the line group at rasterisation time, so a width change patches one object instead of thousands. Nudging Lv1 1.4 mm → 1.2 mm now lands instantly even with thousands of OSM segments loaded.
  • • Numeric width inputs in the road / railway panels are debounced by 250 ms. Holding ＋ / − or typing a multi-digit value now only commits the final value once the user pauses, so the heavy 3D pipeline runs once instead of 30–60 times per second.
  • • While the user is actively editing a width or colour, the 3D preview mesh is rendered at half resolution (1/4 the vertices). The display returns to full resolution about 0.4 seconds after the last interaction. The exported file is unaffected — this only changes the live preview during interaction.
3D white relief map editor — Performance pass II: per-level raster cache, water cleansing now uses the same fast preview, and the 3D mesh buffer is reused across edits
  • • Each road and railway level (Lv1 expressways / Lv2 national / Lv3 prefectural / Lv4 local; Shinkansen / general railway / light transport) now keeps its own cached raster image. Editing only one level's width or colour now repaints just that level — the other levels are reused at zero cost. With four road levels and three railway classes loaded, this cuts the per-edit work to roughly one seventh.
  • • Water cleansing (eraser sweep over rivers / coast / lakes) now also activates the half-resolution preview while the brush is in motion, so the 3D view stays responsive during long sweeps. Full resolution returns after the brush stops.
  • • The 3D preview mesh's underlying buffer is now kept alive across edits. Earlier, every mask change allocated a fresh 1024×1024 plane — about four million floats of indices and UVs — only to throw it away on the next change. The same buffer is now reused as long as the preview dimensions don't change, releasing pressure on the garbage collector.
3D white relief map editor — Performance pass III: rapid +/- presses are coalesced, infrastructure compositing moved off the main thread, and finishing a road / railway import settles smoothly
  • • The +/- buttons and colour pickers for road / railway levels now show their new value instantly but only commit one change after a short pause (about 220 ms). Holding the − button or rapidly tapping it no longer queues a stack of expensive 3D rebuilds; the editor waits for the user to settle before doing the heavy work once.
  • • The per-level raster compositing for OSM-imported roads and railways now runs in a dedicated Web Worker. The 3D preview shows the previous mask while the worker computes the new one, so adjusting widths or colours never freezes the editor — the user can keep moving the slider, opening other panels, or rotating the view while the new mask is being prepared in the background.
  • • The terrain slope map (used for "flat / gentle / incline / steep" zone displays) is now cached separately from the per-zone masks. Eraser strokes that only affect a slope zone no longer trigger a full recomputation of the underlying slope map — they reuse the cached one and only redo the cheap masking step.
  • • Finishing an OSM road or railway import now temporarily drops the live preview to half resolution for about 1.2 seconds, smoothing over the burst of rasterisation work that follows a successful fetch. The view returns to full resolution once the new strokes have settled.
R8 (2026).04.29NEWFIXIMPROVE
3D white relief map editor — Infrastructure layer: now drawn in the print simulation, with a unified "Lv" naming for roads and railways and refined default widths
  • • The 3D print simulation now renders the Infrastructure layer (OSM-imported roads and railways) alongside hand-drawn lines, water, map symbols, and administrative boundaries. A new "Infrastructure representation" toggle in the simulation header controls it independently of hand-drawn lines, so both can be reasoned about side by side.
  • • Road levels and railway classes are now labelled with a unified "Lv" prefix: roads as Lv1 expressways & toll / Lv2 national & major prefectural / Lv3 prefectural & main city / Lv4 other local & private; railways as Lv1 Shinkansen / Lv2 JR & private lines / Lv3 light transport (monorail, tram, funicular, and cable-car lines including aerialway=cable_car). The "Lv1 first" stacking priority that was already in force now reads the same way in the UI as in the docs and exports.
  • • Default road print widths have been re-balanced for printability at typical 150 mm output: Lv1 1.4 mm (was 1.8) and Lv2 1.0 mm (was 1.2). Lv3 0.8 mm and Lv4 0.4 mm are unchanged. The number can still be edited per level.
  • • Vertical-scale adjustment is now linked between the main simulator and the print simulation. Moving either control updates the other (across tabs) and is saved back into the simulation data, so both views stay in the same relief exaggeration.
3D white relief map editor — Output Settings dialog now shows the list of objects that will be written to the .3mf file, with a colour swatch per object
  • • The Output Settings dialog now lists every 3D object that will be emitted: terrain_base, water, each LINE group, each Infrastructure level/class (e.g. Lv1 高速・有料道路, Lv1 新幹線), heritage, admin, slope zones (SLOPE-平地 etc.), elevation zones (ELEV-100m etc.), credit-plate and credit-icon — each with its currently assigned colour next to it.
  • • The names match exactly what shows up in slicers such as Bambu Studio and OrcaSlicer, so it is easy to plan ahead which filament colour goes to which part before sending the .3mf to the printer.
  • • Slope zones are again emitted as required SLOPE-* colour objects, but now with the correct inlay command: every higher-priority mask is subtracted first, terrain_base is recessed one layer to create a matching groove, and the slope object is inserted into that groove. Flat / gentle / steep colours therefore remain assignable in the slicer while never covering map symbols or other higher-priority objects.
  • • Colour controls now accept direct RGB values and a small Japanese preset palette (white, grey, black, blues, greens, red, brown, yellow, orange, pink, and purple). The default slope, road, and railway colours have been rebalanced to a calmer print palette, and the Output Settings object list is now a single column with Japanese colour names and RGB values; the same detailed list is included when copying or printing the output information.
  • • 3MF exports now include a small Bambu Studio / Orca Slicer compatible metadata block so each colour part is auto-assigned to its own filament slot when the file is opened. The exact colour palette used in the editor is pre-loaded into the slicer's project filament list, so the imported model already shows in its real colours instead of every part defaulting to filament 1. Geometry is unchanged.
  • • The credit-plate place-name font has been reduced by approximately 0.5 pt (from 34 px to 33 px at the plate's 3.64 px/mm canvas scale) so a full 7-character Japanese name — e.g. "日光・華厳の滝" — now fits without truncation. The input limit has been updated to match: Japanese 7 characters / English 14 characters.
R8 (2026).04.27NEWIMPROVE
Knowledge Repository — two new entries that clarify "how to read a city": an at-a-glance street-pattern visualiser, and Japan's official indicator dashboard
  • • City Roads (anvaka) has been added to the Geographic Primary Data layer: type any city name and the tool draws every road found in OpenStreetMap as a single line-art plate, so the shape of a city — grid, radial, or organic where rivers and coastlines have reshaped it — reads at a glance. Two cities can sit side by side for comparison.
  • • Japan Dashboard (Economy, Finance, Population, and Everyday Life) has been added to the Statistics & Open Data layer: an official dashboard jointly built by the Cabinet Office, the Digital Agency, and the Cabinet Secretariat that exposes about 1,000 indicators at the prefecture and municipality level, across population, economy, social security, education, living, social infrastructure, and local public finance. It pairs naturally with e-Stat and RESAS as a window into Japan's regional differences.
  • • The new cards are translated into Japanese, English, and Taiwan Mandarin (Traditional Chinese) in the same pass.
Homepage footer — the masthead edition date now tracks the topmost changelog entry automatically, so the publication date no longer drifts
  • • The "Edition" line at the bottom of every page now reads from a single source that is updated alongside the changelog. When a newer dated entry is added, the footer edition updates in the same commit.
  • • A standing operating rule has been codified to keep the two in lockstep, alongside the existing rules on changelog style, changelog auto-update, and three-locale translation sync.
R8 (2026).04.26NEWFIXIMPROVE
3D white relief map editor — a broad usability overhaul for tablets and stylus pens: scrollable dialogs, two-finger panning that no longer drops stamps, and everyday pen taps now registering as button presses
  • • Export settings, the road-drawing panel, the eraser panel, and the map-symbol picker are now fully scrollable on phones and tablets, so the Print / Apply / Close controls are always reachable.
  • • iPad pen input now behaves like a finger tap on buttons and toggles, not just on drawing strokes — so the whole editor can be driven by the stylus end to end.
  • • When a symbol is being placed, two-finger panning on touch devices moves the map cleanly without dropping extra symbols; the placement commits only on a deliberate single-finger tap.
3D white relief map editor — safer editing and clearer controls: a confirmation step before discarding, Undo from the very first action, 12 distinguishable line colors, Shinkansen line style, and larger sliders
  • • The clear-bounds button has been spaced apart from the undo arrow, and tapping it now asks for confirmation before discarding work. An accidental tap no longer loses a build.
  • • Undo now tracks every action from the start — placing a symbol, drawing a line, changing an elevation zone — not only the eraser.
  • • The line-drawing palette has been expanded to 12 perceptually distinct colors that remain distinguishable for colorblind viewers, and a Shinkansen line style has been added alongside the existing railway style.
  • • Line width, vertical scale, and eraser size can now be adjusted on a larger pop-out slider, which is far easier to use on a touchpad, a pen, or a fingertip.
  • • Map-symbol stamps now have three size presets (Lv1 ≈ 4 mm, Lv2 ≈ 5 mm, Lv3 ≈ 6 mm) that are selectable from the stamp tool bar. Lv1 stays the default, so existing projects are unchanged.
  • • In the Cultural Properties (historic sites, scenic beauties, natural monuments) panel, the auto-fetch button has been moved to the top so it is always reachable, and the data-source list now reflects only what the editor actually queries — Wikidata via SPARQL and OpenStreetMap Nominatim for name-based geocoding.
3D white relief map editor — slope and elevation zones become discrete 3D objects, and the 3D simulation now reflects the picked colors, so the printed result is easier to imagine
  • • Slope zones have been redefined on a four-band scale: flat (0°–3°), gentle (3°–8°), incline (8°–15°), and steep (15° and above).
  • • Elevation zones export as their own named 3D objects inside the output file, so multi-color slicers such as Bambu Studio can assign a different filament to every elevation band. Slope zones remain a surface-colour reading aid in the editor and simulation, sitting below all higher-priority objects.
  • • In the 3D simulation, roads and other drawn lines now display in the colors they were drawn with, and slope / elevation zones in the colors they were assigned — so the preview matches what the print will look like.
  • • The output-relief panel now offers a -0.2 mm "carve-down" option for the water layer, so rivers, lakes, and coasts can be recessed 0.2 mm below the terrain surface for a clearer read while printing. The water-width correction selector also includes 0.22 mm as an always visible option.
  • • A new sidebar panel, "インフラ表現" (Infrastructure representation), pulls OSM road and railway center lines into the model as a category kept separate from hand-drawn ライン管理. Roads split into four levels (expressways & toll / national & major prefectural / other prefectural & main city / other local & private). Railways split into three classes (Shinkansen / general railways i.e. JR & private lines / light transport such as monorail, tram, funicular), with Shinkansen defaulting to a 1.6 mm dedicated double-track line and the general railway default width set to 1.2 mm. Each level or class loads as its own colour-coded line group, prints as its own 3D object, and can be switched on / off, colour-picked, and dialled in mm individually — unchecking clears the imported lines immediately, as the water layers already do. The "造形の盛り上げ" (relief) panel now has a dedicated slot for インフラ表現 sitting between 水系表現 and ライン描画, so imported infrastructure can be raised or lowered independently of both water and hand-drawn lines. The object stacking rule is now documented and enforced: map symbols > later-drawn LINE > administrative boundaries > railways (Shinkansen first) > roads (L1 first) > water > elevation zones > slope zones > terrain. OSM tag mapping is documented in the project README.
  • • Heavy projects with OSM roads and railways imported across a wide area now export reliably to the end: a staged progress bar shows which step is running, and the browser no longer triggers a "page not responding" prompt before the .3mf / .stl / .obj / .glb is ready — the rasterization stage of thousands of imported lines is an order of magnitude faster, and large 3MF files are compressed at a lighter level when they exceed a threshold to keep the main thread responsive.
  • • Fixed a defect where exported 3D files carried a stray, unprintable sub-millimetre speck on the outside (a ~0.5 mm brown pillar). It appeared when an OSM tram, monorail, funicular or similar light-rail way only nicked the edge of the selected area — the tiny in-bbox nick was being emitted as its own 3D object and then flagged by Bambu Studio / OrcaSlicer as an unprintable warning object. The fetch pipeline now drops OSM ways whose in-bbox footprint is shorter than 10 m, and the rasterizer drops any remaining group whose footprint is under 0.25 mm². Hand-drawn lines are untouched.
3D white relief map editor — print-ready polish: administrative boundary default width set to 0.4 mm, a wider credit plate, and more characters for the place name
  • • The default stroke width for administrative boundaries is now 0.4 mm for a new session — a thin line that matches common FDM nozzle scale. The earlier 4 mm default read far too boldly at typical 150 mm prints.
  • • The credit plate on the back of the print has been extended 1 cm to the right. Japanese place names can now carry one more character, English names two more.
R8 (2026).04.22NEWFIXIMPROVE
SEO and GEO-style discovery metadata refreshed across Japanese, English, and Taiwan Mandarin (Traditional Chinese) — clearer portal positioning, terrain-led inquiry, and 3D white relief map editor visibility
  • • Homepage and hub descriptions now state more clearly how terrain-led inquiry connects history and geography, and how the 3D white relief map editor turns Japan-wide terrain into printable teaching models with exports such as 3MF, GLB, STL, and OBJ.
  • • Locale-aware titles and summaries are aligned for major entry pages, including the Knowledge Repository and News, with consistent cross-language linking where the site offers Japanese, English, and Taiwan Mandarin (Traditional Chinese) routes.
  • • The public sitemap now lists additional teaching tools and city viewers, including GeoLab and the 3D editor route, with refreshed dates so crawlers see the full breadth of the platform.
Unified naming for the third locale — Taiwan Mandarin (Traditional Chinese) — in the language menu and in operating rules
  • • The language switcher label for the third route is now locale-aware: Japanese UI shows 台湾華語（繁体字）, English UI shows Taiwan Mandarin (Traditional Chinese), and the Traditional UI shows 台灣華語（繁體字）.
  • • README and the i18n Cursor rule now codify that **Japanese** maintainer-facing prose must name this locale **台湾華語（繁体字）**; English prose uses Taiwan Mandarin (Traditional Chinese). Technical codes and paths remain `zh-TW`.
Knowledge Repository — a new "Weather and Clouds (a sense of wonder)" layer, and a major content expansion that carries a child's question from kids' weather portals to the WMO International Cloud Atlas and research-grade climate data
  • • A new layer, "Weather and Clouds (a sense of wonder)", has been inserted between Learning in the Field and Geographic Primary Data. Everything about the sky now lives on one shelf — JMA kids' portals, the WMO International Cloud Atlas (the world's standard cloud classification), Himawari real-time satellite imagery, and climate data from NOAA and NASA.
  • • JMA Weather Statistics, the Himawari satellite, Met Office (UK), DWD (Germany), and KMA (South Korea) — previously shelved under Geographic Primary Data — have moved into this new weather layer, so international comparison of weather and climate now sits naturally in one place.
  • • About 130 new resources have been added across the 11 layers. From ministry kids' pages and the WMO International Cloud Atlas to climographs, Hinata GIS, ADEAC, ColBase, Europeana, Gallica, folk-tale libraries and iNaturalist, a learner can now move from the elementary-school entry to university- and research-level verification within the same portal.
  • • The Google Earth card now also notes Voyager — 3D tours of World Heritage sites, and stories on endangered species and the SDGs — so visitors discover that side of the tool from the card itself.
  • • The homepage Knowledge Repository preview now reflects this expansion. The "Today's gateway" featured card has been updated to Earth NullSchool — an animated wind-and-current map — as a direct entry point, and "Weather and Earth Science" has been promoted to one of the four primary browse-by-theme cards.
Knowledge Repository — quality refinement pass: featured-resource tier redesign, 44 gateway resources translated into English and Traditional Chinese, and data accuracy corrections
  • • Featured resources are now organized into three tiers — Gateway (for kids and first steps), Pillar (cornerstone inquiry resources), and Deep Dive (primary sources and research-grade archives) — so visitors can orient at a glance.
  • • English and Taiwan Mandarin (Traditional Chinese) translations added for 44 gateway-tier resources, covering all featured children's portals, kids' weather and space sites, and key map and archive tools. Descriptions and inquiry tips are now readable in all three locales.
  • • Accuracy pass: the resource count badge now reflects the actual total (300+); grade levels corrected for one resource; structured data for the page now includes meteorology.
  • • The Weather and Clouds layer introduction rewritten as a leading question — "Why do clouds form?" — to front the inquiry posture from the first line.
  • • Build stability fix: a guard has been added so featured-tier classification handles resources with optional auxiliary tags safely, and duplicate EN / Taiwan Mandarin (Traditional Chinese) resource overlays have been removed to keep production builds deterministic.
  • • AdSense display ads restored: Content Security Policy headers were extended to allow the ad-delivery domains that the security hardening pass had unintentionally blocked. Ads are excluded from tool and simulation pages so they do not interrupt hands-on learning.
Knowledge Repository — full i18n completion: all 329 resources now carry English and Taiwan Mandarin (Traditional Chinese) titles, descriptions, and inquiry tips
  • • Translations for the remaining 107 resources — from ministry kids' pages, real-time weather tools, and geology databases to classical literature archives, performing arts platforms, and regional GIS — have been added in this pass. Every resource card in the Knowledge Repository now displays in all three locales without falling back to Japanese.
  • • Wave 2 (29 resources) covered the Weather and Clouds layer in full, plus featured pillar and archive resources across layers B, D, G, and T. Wave 3 (78 resources) completed the rest: government kids' portals, disaster preparedness tools, historical place-name databases, law indexes, and academic society resources.
R8 (2026).04.20NEWIMPROVE
Two standing operating principles newly codified, and a refined homepage opening — the "Academic Editorial" brand design principle v1.0, and the changelog "Entry Classification System" v1.0
  • • The "Academic Editorial" brand design principle v1.0 has been formally codified — "the composure of a scholarly journal, with the presence of a documentary film" — and applied site-wide; every new page or feature from here on must be built to the same principle.
  • • The changelog "Entry Classification System" v1.0 has been codified alongside it. Every dated entry now carries one or more of NEW / FIX / IMPROVE marks, and on mixed-update days the color of the vertical accent on the left of the entry is derived from the combination.
  • • The homepage opening has been re-balanced: Start Inquiry and Create GBM now sit as a pair of flagship gateway cards, with the main headline leading the eye first and the two gateways quietly supporting it.
Knowledge Repository — restructured around a child-first axis, with Teacher redrawn as a peer of the grade levels
  • • The first two layers have been re-curated by one question: does this let a child begin? "First learning" now keeps only truly universal entry points (a map everyone uses, kids' map-literacy and kids' statistics pages, a museum video channel, social-studies shorts), and "Widening learning" keeps curiosity-first materials (world museums, a world-of-life encyclopedia, historical world maps). Teacher-oriented introductions have been removed from these two layers.
  • • A new "Learning in the field" layer has been inserted between Widening learning and the geographic primary-data layer — cultural-heritage and historic-site videos and museum materials now gather here, so a child can move from "wonder" into the gentle pull of "I want to go and feel this place myself".
  • • A dedicated "Teachers' Commons" layer has been added, split into two tiers that match how teachers actually work: one for lesson plans (new teachers), and one for teaching materials and instructional guidance (mid-career and veteran teachers).
  • • The grade row has been rebalanced: "Teacher" is now a peer of elementary / middle / high / university / researcher, each with its own distinct icon (the High-school and University icons have been refreshed to end earlier collisions). The Teacher chip itself has been set free as an independent audience filter, so combinations like "Teacher × Video" or "Teacher × Cultural Heritage" now stack cleanly instead of cancelling each other out.
Knowledge Repository — labels, pills and filter rail brought into one honest, legible surface, and the homepage aligned to match
  • • Content-type labels have been rewritten to match the actual reading experience: Academic → Research, New Teacher → Lesson Plans, Veteran Teacher → Teaching Materials & Guidance.
  • • Eleven auxiliary tags (Kids' Entry / Disaster / Earth Science / Cultural Heritage / Natural Science / Open Data / GIS / Official Video / API / English / Multilingual) have been promoted to first-class "Theme tag" filters alongside layer / grade / content-type. Every pill now carries a visible border, so the whole repository reads as one consistent surface.
  • • The hero counter has grown up: instead of a hand-written "80+", the badge now reads the live count from the data itself, so "120+ free resources" stays honest as the collection grows.
  • • The homepage has been aligned to this new shape. Below the four flagship "Browse by method" cards (Video / Statistics / Map / Primary sources) the remaining content types are lined up as small pills, and a new "Browse by Angle" block gives every one of the eleven theme tags a homepage entry point. Each flagship card now lands on a cross-layer summary of its own type — clicking "Learn through video" opens a true video collection, not a learning-stage title.
Knowledge Repository — a major content expansion so that one portal carries an inquiry from "ask about your town" to "ask the world the same question", from elementary students to researchers
  • • For children and general readers, the "short route to overseas primary sources" has been widened. Open-access collections from the world's museums, geographic search of historical maps worldwide, a global encyclopedia of living things together with the official Red List of threatened species, and full-text archives of out-of-copyright classics are now reachable directly from the widening-learning layer. Two university-level OpenCourseWare tracks are lined up beside them, viewable without registration. Each card carries a gentle cue that "even in English, images and numbers will carry you".
  • • For teachers, the shortest route to Japan's regional and specialised archives has been substantially broadened (modern public records, classical books, imperial-household records, regional history, women's history, military history, integrated cultural-heritage databases), and sector-specific national statistics have been added (economy and fiscal, forest and forestry, infectious-disease surveillance, biodiversity). In the Teachers' Commons, the Library of Congress's teacher-facing page that pairs primary sources with questioning examples has been brought in as a reference model for classroom design in Japan, and the go-to teaching hubs run by Japan's leading social-studies textbook publishers — a textbook-aligned ICT teaching-materials library, and a family of free teacher periodicals covering lesson research and recent scholarship in geography, history, and civics — have also been wired in.
  • • The academic staircase for university students and researchers has been deepened another step. World-standard preprints (life / medical / social sciences), the world's largest open-access paper cross-search, and a researcher-identifier ID — the "backbone of international peer review" — have been added. On the Japanese side, six national research institutions (ICT, basic science, statistical science, Japanese language, economics and industry, fisheries) have joined, and both a U.S. research-library consortium digital library (full-text out-of-copyright books) and university-level OpenCourseWare are now wired in.
  • • A whole international layer has been built out so the world can be read at the same resolution as your own town. Official surveying, geological, and meteorological agencies from multiple countries; satellite and Earth observation; global population and administrative-boundary datasets; statistics from international organisations (economy / energy / health / labour / human rights / refugees / nuclear / trade); national statistical offices of major countries; national archives and national libraries worldwide; official access points to international law and treaties; and the global scaffolding of biodiversity data have all been added, each linking directly to the primary source in the issuing country. Japan's Statistics Bureau directory of foreign government statistical agencies is placed alongside as a hub, so the inquiry path "ask in your town, then ask the world the same question" can be followed through a single line in every field.
  • • About forty existing resources whose character was already implicit (disaster / cultural heritage / open data / GIS / official video / English / multilingual) have been tagged accordingly, so the filters finally match the reality of what's inside; the Official Gazette card has been refreshed to reflect that, since 2025, the electronic edition is the authentic, official version.
R8 (2026).04.19NEWIMPROVE
Homepage-wide UI overhaul — a cinematic opening, and a single editorial feel running through every page
  • • The background film on the homepage now drifts slowly and carries a subtle vignette and a faint film-like grain — giving the opening the air of a geographic documentary.
  • • The four flagship homepage sections (Start Inquiry / How to Ask? / How to Create? / Knowledge Repository) now share the same composition, spacing and typography, so the page reads as one coherent publication.
  • • "How to Ask?" has been rebuilt as a three-step learning path, with a companion panel on the right that shows a raw question being gradually refined into a verifiable one.
  • • The Knowledge Repository block has returned to a bright, highly legible layout where grade, theme and learning method can be grasped at a glance — friendly again for younger readers.
  • • The same editorial treatment has been extended across the rest of the site — News, About, Terms, Privacy, the Concept page, and the regional inquiry pages — so every page now shares one consistent feel.
  • • Reviewed and tightened the English and Traditional Chinese (Taiwan) translations to match.
Knowledge Repository: link category review, link additions, multilingual support
  • • Added a new "For Teachers" filter, and 3 new resources centered on teaching materials and lesson plans. Existing teacher-oriented sites have been retagged accordingly.
  • • Added 2 new all-ages featured resources, each with official tutorial / explainer video links.
  • • Added 2 new history & geography resources usable from elementary level onwards.
  • • Reviewed each resource description, and supplemented several newly-available official tutorial / explainer videos.
  • • Standardized the secondary-link wording (unified to "Tutorial videos") for consistent UI.
  • • Implemented full multilingual support for the entire Knowledge Repository: every resource title, description, tip, layer name, mission, and grade guide is now translated into English and Traditional Chinese (Taiwan).
  • • The Knowledge Repository block on the homepage has been redesigned — with prominent grade buttons, a "Today's Gateway" pick, five learning-method cards (now including "For Teachers"), and a teaser for the upcoming "Expert Perspectives" column.
R8 (2026).04.07NEWFIX
Tablet/mobile guidance and map-layer UI adjustments
  • • Repositioned STEP 1/2/3 guidance overlays upward so buttons remain easy to tap on tablet and smartphone screens.
  • • Fixed the tablet map-layer switcher UI so the dropdown menu opens correctly.
  • • Added 1 new history & geography resource to the Knowledge Repository — a historical-map overlay tool usable from elementary through specialist level.
R8 (2026).04.05NEWFIXIMPROVE
Coastline time machine reliability improvements and map display fixes
  • • The water-level slider now follows smoothly, even during rapid operation.
  • • The world-map base layer has been switched to the more reliable CartoDB service, so regions outside Japan now display stably. Mainland Japan continues to use GSI (Geospatial Information Authority of Japan) hillshade and pale-color overlays.
  • • Credit lines in all three languages have been updated to reflect the new map-source composition.
3D white map editor touch selection improvements
  • • Fixed tablet and smartphone touch input for region selection.
  • • Reworked touch handling to support one-finger selection with two-finger pan/zoom.
  • • Adjusted guidance overlay to not block map interaction.
Knowledge Repository update
  • • Added 1 new history resource accessible from elementary school level, with a tutorial video link. Set as a featured resource.
R8 (2026).04.04NEWIMPROVE
Coastline simulator map update and heritage UI enhancements
  • • The coastline-simulator base map has been rebuilt as a hybrid composition: OpenStreetMap for global coverage, with a high-detail GSI (Geospatial Information Authority of Japan) hillshade and pale-color overlay layered on top for mainland Japan. The world can now be surveyed on a single consistent map, while Japan keeps the detailed terrain read-out it had before.
  • • Coastal heritage points have been reorganized for easier discovery, with expanded global candidates and richer descriptions for each.
  • • Added a function-based legend for coastal heritage points, while keeping every point visible on the map by default.
R8 (2026).04.01NEW
Public release of the 3D white map editor
  • • 3D white maps overlaid with OpenStreetMap waterways can now be edited directly in the browser.
  • • Maps can be composed by combining area selection, road line-drawing, heritage stamps and administrative boundary display.
  • • Slope-zone and elevation-zone coloring make the shape of the land easy to read at a glance.
  • • Finished maps can be exported in five formats — 3MF / GLB / PNG / STL / OBJ — so the same map can be used for 3D printing, in-browser viewers, and print.
  • • A simple pre-export simulation (line-width and vanishing-detail checks) confirms whether fine details will 3D-print cleanly.
02MONTH

January 2026

R8 (2026).01.30NEWIMPROVE
Completion of the news release display feature and major update to "How to Create?" content
  • • Added a ribbon on the homepage that automatically cycles through recent announcements.
  • • Added a dedicated announcements page (in all three languages).
  • • Added buttons that take readers directly to the full external article.
  • • Added a link from the footer to the announcements page.
  • • Redesigned the language switcher icons so they render cleanly on every device.
  • • Added two tutorial videos under "How to Create?" — how to use GSI maps (Geospatial Information Authority of Japan), and an introduction to terrain modeling in Blender.
  • • Added a preview section introducing upcoming directions — AR, generative AI, layer features, and classroom integration (all planned).
  • • The homepage "How to Create?" block has been refreshed into a horizontally-scrollable layout showing multiple themes side by side.
R8 (2026).01.27NEW
3-language support and 3D terrain viewer feature additions
  • • Added 3-language support: Japanese, English, and Traditional Chinese (Taiwan).
  • • Implemented a feature in the 3D terrain viewer that allows movement in a first-person-like view by tilting a tablet or smartphone.
  • • Added the Kanazawa-area 3D terrain viewer: explore the castle town of Kaga Hyakumangoku between the Sai and Asano rivers.
R8 (2026).01.26NEW
New Fukuoka-area 3D terrain viewer added
  • • Made 3D terrain data for the Fukuoka area explorable in the browser.
  • • Implemented two viewpoints: Giant Mode (bird's-eye view) and Exploration Mode (first-person view).
  • • Added a "discovery learning" feature to reveal microtopography by changing the sun angle.
  • • Added operation guides for desktop, smartphone, and tablet users.
  • • Added a MakerWorld download link for 3D-print data.
R8 (2026).01.18NEW
  • • Visualization of seasonal winds, jet streams, and ocean currents.
R8 (2026).01.15NEW
  • • Official public release of the Create GBM portal site.
  • • Completion of the privacy policy (Google AdSense support and explanation of operating costs for generative AI features).
R8 (2026).01.14NEW
  • • Completion of the top page.
  • • Expanded and revised the Knowledge Repository.
  • • Completion of "What Questions to Ask?".
R8 (2026).01.13NEW
Completion of the Coastline Time Machine
  • • Interactively experience 15,000 years of sea-level change, from the Jomon transgression (+5m) to the Ice Age (-120m), via a single slider.
  • • Switch between 15 era presets — from the Paleolithic through to the present — to watch coastlines shift.
  • • Major archaeological sites and shrines across Japan are pinned on the map as landmarks.
  • • Covers ancient global landforms too — Doggerland, Sundaland, the Bering Land Bridge, and more.
  • • Inquiry hints and prompt questions are provided to help learners reason about "why".
R8 (2026).01.12NEW
Creation of the Knowledge Repository — curated history & geography links, organized by level up to specialists
  • • Established an inquiry-focused development principle that prioritizes cultivating questions over memorizing answers.
  • • Prepared a comparison of six map types as an entry point for inquiry.
  • • Expanded the content pages for 3D terrain (GBM).
  • • Expanded the content pages for water-system and related themes.
  • • Built out the Knowledge Repository — a curated collection of history- and geography-related links, organized by level from elementary through to researchers.
Made the site easier to discover — for both search engines and generative AI
  • • Restructured the site so it is easier to find from both search engines and generative AI.
R8 (2026).01.11NEW
Completion of water-system data display content
  • • 12 cities supported: Saga / Osaka / Kurashiki / Kofu / Nagoya / Takamatsu / Niigata / Kushiro / Tokyo / Kanazawa / Matsue / Hiroshima.
Release of the Create GBM test site
R8 (2026).01.07NEW
Implementation of water-system data display content
Implementation of generative AI features
R8 (2026).01.04NEW
Implementation of map features
POLICY

Development Policy

Create GBM is a history-and-geography education platform that utilizes 3D terrain models (GBM) and continues to improve and expand its functions. Through map expressions that spark intuitive ideas simply by looking,and through GIS-based data visualization, it offers ideas for problem-finding and inquiry-based learning.
By providing highly reliable data and information and continuously improving UI/UX,we aim to help users explore history and geography more intuitively.

03MONTH

December 2025

R7 (2025).12.26NEW
Start of building the Create GBM portal site