When I was a kid, I hated going there.
Tainan is hot and humid. The temple was crowded and noisy.
And the incense smoke always burned my eyes.
It's become one of my favorite places.
Every time I go back to Taiwan, I visit with my father.
I feel the connection of everyone's faith.
I finally understand what belief means to these people — and to him.
It's become a place of peace.
Same space.
I'm lucky. I can still return — and revisit with a different perspective.
But what about the places that are gone?
We only have photos. And photos only show what it looked like — not what it felt like.
I'm a stage lighting designer. For me, feeling is about space.
Space is how I perceive the world and communicate feelings.
But how can we save this feeling?
How can we preserve this spatial experience?
What if we could step into a spatial memory,
not just look at photos?
And how would returning to this space
change our relationship with memory?
My thesis explores the transformation of human-memory interaction when memories shift from 2D images to 3D spaces.
3D Gaussian Splatting preserves space with high fidelity.
VR lets us step inside and be enveloped.
Together: we can return to spatial memories.
With these new possibilities, new questions emerge:
What does it feel like to be inside a spatial memory?
How might we interact with it?
Walk through? Reshape? Share?
I don't know yet. That's exactly why I started exploring.
3DGS capture of Nankunshen Temple (winter break)
360 camera → RealityScan → PostShot → Unreal Engine → VR
The final project may use this space, or a different one.
| Time | Goal |
|---|---|
| Jan - Feb | Technical experiments |
| End of Feb | First Prototype |
| Mar 11 | Midterm Demo |
| Mar - Apr | Iteration & testing |
| May | Final + Showcase |