Why Historical Reconstruction? Part 1/2

With ever advancing computer technology, applications and the techniques to display information on varying platforms, historical reconstruction and digitization of artefacts will always play a part in our lives. Preserving cultural heritage and keeping history alive through techniques that can extend our perceptive capacity and understanding furthermore than photographic evidence could.

Virtual models can provide new perspectives and the potential to transcend from a physical location such as a museum room into a part of history using methods such as virtual reality. Various ancient reconstructed sites presented in 3D include Pompeii in Greece & Rome in Italy.

Using real-time techniques in this context offers a range of opportunities for detailed reconstruction heritage sites to be viewed and explored with a user being able to navigate through a place that is difficult to get to or does not exist anymore, thus increases one intellectual capacity of the environment and the history in that specific time period (Zuffo, M. (2007).

Virtual environments give users the possibilities of placing them in the environment and maintaining normal everyday parameters of a users height and view angle so that it is easy to understand spatial awareness and properties of buildings and artefacts (Zara, J. 2004). Other applications may allow a user to navigate freely by also flying, so that a user has total interactive freedom in the immersive virtual environment.

A virtual environment that has been historically reconstructed was Rome (Rome Reborn blog post from an earlier date). The work developed here ignited my interest in the subject of historic reconstruction. The Rome project and the Sao Paolo reconstruction of 1911 (Zuffo, M) gave me an understanding of how the process works. From the early stages of research, modelling and finally visualisation. The aim of the later was to provide an in depth 3D visual representation of how the city of Sao Paolo looked like in the early 20th century. Below is a Perspective render of cathedral (IgrejadaS´e), Germania and Casa Lebre buildings from the project.

References

Gaitatzes, A., Chritopoulos, D., Voulgari, A., Roussou, M. (2001) Hellenic Cultural Heritage through Immersive Virtual Archaeology.
Hall, T., Benford, S., Bowers, S (2002) The Visitor as Virtual Archaeologist: Explorations in Mixed Reality Technology to Enhance Educational and Social Interaction in the Museum.
Zuffo, M., Cabral, M., Nomura, L., Nagamura, M., Andrade, F., Ghirotti, S., Belloc, O., (2007)X3D Experiences on Historical Architectural Digital Reconstruction: A case Study of Sao Paulo city in 1911.
Zara, J. (2004) Virtual Reality and Cultural Heritage on the Web.

Weblinks

http://www.romereborn.virginia.edu/