Why do Virtual Heritage?

[Tami]

This article is in the latest edition of [url=\"http://www.archaeology.org/\"]Archaeology News[/url]. It makes for a very interesting read, and goes to show another possible career avenue for those who have an interest in 3D work as well as ancient history. Due to copyright laws, you will have to visit their site to read the full article. A direct link is given below.

[b]Why do Virtual Heritage?[/b]

by Donald H. Sanders

Case studies from the portfolio of a long-time practitioner

Introduction

Those of us in the virtual heritage business who create digital surrogates of the ancient world see many benefits of visualizing the past interactively and in 3D. We understand that the past did not happen in 2D and that it cannot be effectively studied or taught as a series of disconnected static images that, for the most part, represent incomplete remains. It seems obvious to us that you need an interactive, 3D approach if you expect others to get excited about ancient cultures or expect them to grasp the implications of the evidence.

But how do we convince archaeologists, who should be embracing our technologies, that it is to their advantage to see the ancient world as the ancients did, rather than as static 2D representations in black and white? Today, when personal digital video and music players, GPS-enabled camera cell phones, wireless high-speed home networks, and laptops for schoolchildren are commonplace, why is it so difficult to convince scholars that interactive 3D environments are instructive not simply eye-catching novelties? We could even state this more forcefully: Archaeologists are doing a disservice to their discipline, colleagues, students, and the public by not using all means available to record sites, test hypotheses, and teach about the past.

I have worked in virtual heritage for more than a decade, and in 1993 was involved in one of the earliest virtual re-creations of ancient sites, Buhen, a 12th Dynasty Egyptian fortress whose remains were inundated by Lake Nasser in the late 1960s. Over the years my two companies have worked on dozens of projects--partnering with many archaeologists, museums, broadcast channels, publishers, and even foreign governments--and covering all types of data and visualization goals, from teaching packages, to research resources, to digital publications, to hypothesis tests. We have found that projects routinely generate unexpected revelations about the excavated record, and that the archaeologists who collaborate with us learn about their sites in ways not possible with traditional analytical tools. New understandings emerge when scholars see the ancient world in context, in 3D, and through the eyes of the ancient inhabitants. With new understandings come a new appreciation for the complexity of ancient cultures; lessons that can provide more relevance for the classroom, for the public, and for ourselves; and new challenges for the way archaeology is done.

Before looking at digital visualization case studies, we need to consider how archaeological data has traditionally been illustrated, and how that affects what we know and how we learn about the past. Since archaeology's eighteenth-century beginnings, we have relied mostly on drawings, photographs, charts, and graphs. But before then--way before then--there was stone. When Gudea, the prince of Lagash in Sumeria around 2125 B.C., wanted a new temple built he depicted his vision as a simple plan etched in stone. In fact, a small statue of Gudea in the Louvre shows him seated on his throne with a slab engraved with a plan, symbolizing the beginning of the construction. But Gudea was depicting future architecture, not history. Similarly, when the Egyptians, Assyrians, Greeks, and Romans depicted architecture (to decorate rooms, record battles, and show foreign lands) they were usually illustrating their present for storytelling, education, or enjoyment, not trying to understand some distant past. Yet, the modes chosen by them to represent their built environment were relatively consistent--2D plans and elevations. Later, when people began documenting the history of architecture (as an aid for contemporary construction or as a chart of past styles), dating at least as far back as the thirteenth-century work of the French traveler Villard de Honnecourt, the use of plans and elevations continued as the chosen means of visualization.

[url=\"http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/virtualheritage/\"][i][b]Read the rest of the article[/b][/i][/url]