Digital innovation for promoting knowledge of paddy functions

The purpose of this paper is to launch a new platform for advocating three functions of paddies including economics, society and environment through the cross-field integration of the agricultural hydrology, information technology and children’s picture book, which is novel. We translate literatures of paddy agriculture to popular content. Scientific visualization is applied to develop digital value-added content for enhancing effects according to computer graphics technologies. For developing the Internet channel, we take web-based architecture coupled with Java3D and Flash visualization as the main solution for engaging attention of virtual communities. With a web browser, we present paddy knowledge that is based on the above-mentioned popular content related to three functions of rice paddies. Furthermore, for the general public, the tiled display wall is employed to build up a fixed-site channel. In this paper, the demonstration of promoting interest in paddy fields has been established. Through exploring this digital paddy, not only children could be encouraged to learn, but also the public could accumulate the knowledge related to paddy agriculture.