Project Title: Conversion of a Stand-alone Virtaul Reality Database into an Internet-based Multimedia Digital Library for the Humanities

Project Award Number: IIS-0218811


Principal Investigator

First Name: Bernard
Middle Initial: D.
Last Name: Frischer
Department: Classics
Institution: UCLA
Address: 100 Dodd Hall
Address:
405 Hilgard Avenue
City:
Los Angeles
State
: CA
Zip Code: 90095-1417
Phone Number: (310) 825-4171
Fax Number: (310) 391-1460
Email: frischer49@aol.com
URL: http://www.humnet.ucla.edu/humnet/classics/faculty/frischer/home.html



Co-PI

First Name: Diane

Middle Initial

Last Name: Favro

Department: Architecture

Institution: UCLA

Address: 1125H Perloff

Address: 405 Hilgard Avenue

City: Los Angeles

State: CA

Zip Code: 90095-1467

Phone Number: (310) 825-5374

Fax Number: (310) 825-8959

Email : dfavro@ucla.edu

URL: http://www.aud.ucla.edu/~favro/




Collaborator

First Name: Dean
Middle Initial: L.
Last Name: Abernathy
Department: UCLA Cultural Virtual Reality Laboratory
Institution: UCLA
Address: 100 Dodd Hall
Address:
405 Hilgard Avenue
City:
Los Angeles
State
: CA
Zip Code: 90095-1417
Phone Number: (310) 794-1989
Fax Number
Email: dabernathy@earthlink.net
URL: www.cvrlab.org

 



Keywords

keyword 1: Virtual Reality
keyword 2: 3D computer model
keyword 3: Cultural heritage
keyword 4: Digital archaeology
 

Project Summary

From 1997 to 2002, the UCLA Cultural Virtual Reality Laboratory created a real-time, interactive 3D computer model of the Roman Forum as it appeared at 10:00 a.m. on June 21, 400 A.D. The Forum was the city center of ancient Rome. The digital Forum model reflects the latest data and archaeological knowledge about how the Forum looked and functioned at the peak of its development. The digital Forum model is used in the UCLA Visualization Theater as a teaching and research resource at UCLA. The Portal is a SGI reality center, powered by a SGI Onyx 3400 supercomputer. The purpose of the NSF-sponsored project is to make this digital resource more widely available by converting the digital Forum model from its original format (OpenFlight) to a format that can run on the Internet. The new version of the model (which will be authored in QuickTime) will be posted in the Perseus Digital Library. At the same time, the lab will create a Forum Web page that will contain both the QuickTime models as well as other information (textual and graphical) helpful in researching the Forum and the buildings and monuments located there.

Publications and Products

Frischer, B. et al. (forthcoming). "The Digital Roman Forum Project of the UCLA Cultural Virtual Reality Laboratory," by B. Frischer, D. Favro, D. Abernathy, M. De Simone, forthcoming in The International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, 5 pp.; available online at: http://www.cvrlab.org/research/research.html#PUBLICATIONS

 

Project Impact

The project has two potential impacts: 1) by making the Forum model more widely available, it will help to improve research and teaching of ancient Roman civilization; and 2) by developing algorithms for converting large-scale VR models into QuickTime models, it will create routines and procedures that can be used for similar conversion projects in the future.

Goals, Objectives and Targeted Activities

In the first year, we created the individual elements needed both for The Perseus Digital Library and the lab’s Forum Web page. These include QuickTime panoramas of the digital computer model; QuickTime panoramas from the same coordinates in the Forum as it exists today; HTML versions of articles on the Forum and its buildings and monuments in L. Richardson, jr. A New Topographical Dictionary of Roman Topography (Baltimore 1992), and HTML versions of all the ancient Greek and Latin sources illuminating the nature, function, and history of the Forum. In the second year, the QuickTime panoramas will be marked up in accordance with the requirements of The Perseus Digital Library; and a draft version of the lab’s Forum Web page will be created for testing and evaluation by the project’s Advisory Committee. In the third year, the final version of the lab’s Web page will be completed and posted for public use.

Area Background

The project falls into the general areas of digital archaeology and 3D computer modeling of cultural heritage sites.

Digital archaeology is a broad field that applies new digital technologies to the solution of traditional problems in archaeology. Examples include: scanning of artifacts or excavation trenches for more accurate and realistic recording of data; use of highly accurate differential GPS devices and total stations for the rapid generation of accurate  site plans; integration of traditionally distinct collections of information from an archaeological site (stratigraphic units, pottery, small finds, etc.) into a single GIS-based database.

3D computer modeling of cultural heritage sites is an emerging subfield within the general area of digital archaeology. The scientific issues at stake include development of standards for file format, metadata, and the visual representation of degrees of certainty/uncertainty about the elements of a model.

Area References

Doerr, M. and A. Sarris, editors, CAA 2002. The Digital Heritage of Archaeology. Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology. Proceedings of the 30th Conference, Heraklion, Crete, April 2002 (Athens 2003)

F. Niccolucci, editor, Virtual Archaeology: Proceedings of the VAST2000 Euroconference,Arezzo, Italy, November 2000. British Archaeological Reports  International Series 1075 (Oxford 2002)

Forte, M., J. Barcelò, D. Sanders, editors, Virtual Reality in Archaeology, British Archaeology Reports International Series S 843 (Oxford 2000).

 

Project Websites

www.cvrlab.org

This is the UCLA Cultural Virtual Reality Laboratory’s home page.

 http://cvrlab.org/forum/index.html
This is the project page devoted to the lab’s digital Forum project.

Illustrations

http://www.cvrlab.org/projects/real_time/roman_forum/roman_forum.html

Here can be found still views of the lab’s Forum model.

 

Other Resources

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/

The Perseus Digital Library.