Google Earth: Ancient Rome 3D

Google Earth has embraced a frontier dating back 17 centuries: ancient Rome under Constantine the Great. Ancient Rome 3D, as the new feature is known, is a digital elaboration of some 7,000 buildings recreating Rome circa A.D. 320, at the height of Constantine’s empire, when more than a million inhabitants lived within the city’s Aurelian walls. In Google Earth-speak it is a “layer” to which visitors gain access through its Gallery database of images and information. Google had planned to activate the feature on Wednesday morning, but a spokesman said there would be a short delay because of technical difficulties. By Wednesday night, however, the feature was up and running. The Google Earth feature is based on his Rome Reborn 1.0, a 3D reconstruction first developed in 1996 at the University of California, Los Angeles, and fine-tuned over the years with partners in the United States and Europe.

Of the 7,000 buildings in the 1.0 version, around 250 are extremely detailed. Thirty-one of them are based on 1:1 scale models built at U.C.L.A. The others are sketchier and derived from a 3D scan of data collected from a plaster model of ancient Rome at the Museum of Roman Civilization here. Archaeologists and scholars verified the data used to create the virtual reconstruction, although debates continue about individual buildings. The Rome Reborn model went through various incarnations over the years as the technology improved. Originally it was developed to be screened in theaters for viewers wearing 3-D glasses or on powerful computers at the universities contributing to the project, rather than run on the Internet. To experience Ancient Rome 3D, a user must install the Google Earth software at earth.google.com, select the Gallery folder on the left side of the screen and then click on “Ancient Rome 3D.”

More information:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/13/arts/design/13anci.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

http://earth.google.com/rome/index.html