Title: Virtualising ancient imperial Rome: from Gismondi's physical model to a new virtual reality application

Authors: Gabriele Guidi, Bernard Frischer, Ignazio Lucenti, Janez Donno, Michele Russo

Addresses: INDACO Department, Politecnico di Milano, Italy. ' IATH, University of Virginia, USA. ' INDACO Department, Politecnico di Milano, Italy. ' INDACO Department, Politecnico di Milano, Italy. ' INDACO Department, Politecnico di Milano, Italy

Abstract: This paper deals with two, related topics: the acquisition and recovery of information |trapped| in the geometry of an historical artifact; the employment of this form of |intangible heritage| as an historical source on a par with more explicit sources such as ancient drawings, books, archaeological excavations, etc. This study relates to the construction of a virtual model of ancient Rome within the framework of the international project known as ||Rome Reborn 1.0|| (www.romereborn.virginia.edu). It exploits intangible information in order to make a plausible reconstruction of ancient Rome, currently one of the largest virtual models ever developed in the field of cultural heritage.

Keywords: 3D laser scanning; reverse modelling; digital mould; 3D data interpretation; CAD; procedural modelling; virtual reality; visualisation; ancient Rome; imperial Rome; intangible heritage; cultural heritage; virtual heritage; digital culture.

DOI: 10.1504/IJDCET.2008.021410

International Journal of Digital Culture and Electronic Tourism, 2008 Vol.1 No.2/3, pp.240 - 252

Published online: 24 Nov 2008 *

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