The University’s Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities recently teamed with Google Earth to bring the institute’s three-dimensional recreation of ancient Rome to the masses in a more innovative and involved way.
Rome Mayor Gianni Alemanno hosted an event Nov. 12 at which the initiative was announced. To celebrate the collaboration, Google Chief Technology Advocate Michael T. Jones and Italian dignitaries were in attendance, a University press release stated. According to the press release, the Google project is an expansion of an earlier project called Rome Reborn, based out of the IATH and the University of California at Los Angeles, that aspired to create a 3D model of ancient Rome during its peak in A.D. 320.
Rome Reborn Project Director Bernard Frischer, who is also the director of IATH, was the inspiration behind the original project. Frischer first arrived in Rome as the Rome Prize Fellow in Classical Studies at the American Academy in 1974 and was introduced soon thereafter to the Plastico di Roma Antica, “an enormous physical model of Rome in the year A.D. 320,” Frischer stated in an e-mail. A.D. 320, Frischer added, was the “peak” of Ancient Rome’s development in terms of population and the city’s physical condition.
“I thought that there ought to be some technology that could make the model [of the plastico] more available to students, scholars and the general public. That’s what started me on my way,” Frischer stated about Rome Reborn.
Frischer and his team then collected the information necessary to create their 3D model by studying well-preserved ancient Roman buildings and monuments, 3D data from the Plastico di Roma Antica and ancient literary sources, Frischer explained. The team then used tools such as laser scanners and virtual reality software “to create a model that was very detailed and as accurately reconstructed,” he stated.
The entire process took 34 years from the time Frischer first saw the Plastico di Roma Antica in Rome and included both a Rome Reborn 1.0 as well as a more highly developed Rome Reborn 2.0.
“I guess this proves, yet again, Winston Churchill’s advice ‘never, ever to give up!’” Frischer added.
The day after Rome Reborn 1.0 was presented to the public at a press conference in Rome in June 2007, Frischer said, he received a call from a Google executive. He then visited Google headquarters in August 2007. Bruce Polderman, Google Earth 3D Product Manager, said the Web site was a great start, but transferring it to Google Earth would allow users to actually “experience” the city.
“It took a lot of hard work and ingenuity on the part of the Google Earth team to make such a big model work efficiently for potentially millions of users logged into the model at the same time and all exploring it with complete freedom of movement,” Frischer stated.
Polderman said he and his team just fine-tuned the work Fischer and his colleagues did.
Google Earth’s Ancient Rome in 3D will allow users to explore more than 6,700 historic sites and learn about ancient Rome through more than 250 “info bubbles,” a Google press release stated. These info bubbles, which were added by IATH, “open up as the user explores the Google model and [give] you quick, basic information about what you’re seeing,” Frischer stated.
The entire project is not yet complete, “and since it’s a digital product, it probably never will be,” Frischer noted, adding that “its strength is that it’s a work in progress.”
Frischer stated that he hopes this 3D model will help educated students understand significant and complex places like Rome. To help promote the project, the Google press release stated that the company is holding a contest encouraging teachers of kindergarten through 12th grade to create innovative lesson plans using the 3D model.
Making models available in Google Earth is “another step in the creation of a virtual time machine which our children and grandchildren will use to study the history of Rome and many other great cities around the world,” Frischer stated. With the positive response toward Google’s Ancient Rome in 3D seen thus far, Frischer added, “it’s logical to expect that Google will want to build on this success by adding more historical layers to Google Earth.”
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