Computer Graphics World

December 2008 18 ■ ■ ■ ■ Virtual Architecture unearthed monument here and remnants of an ancient statue there—often miles apart from one another—can only off er a snapshot of the past; it hardly provides an expansive, detailed picture. Rome Reborn 2 promises to do just that. Rome Revisited Without question, the Rome Reborn 2 digital model is impressive and ground- breaking on a number of fronts and is the largest virtual reconstruction, cultural heritage, and digital archaeology project to date. But to truly appreciate this landmark in terms of its historical and technological achievements, we fi rst need to step back in time—not to the days of Constantine the Great and the Roman Empire, but to the 1970s. at's when Frischer, a young academic, fi rst became enamored with the city and its history after winning the Rome Prize at the American Academy in Rome. " at changed my entire life," says Frischer of receiving the postdoctoral fel- lowship for young artists and scholars. " e intention is to soak up the atmosphere of Rome, and I certainly did that." At the time, Frischer had a PhD in classi- cal arts and literature, and wanted to learn about archaeology. He got that chance when he joined one of the academy's pro- fessors on a walking/talking tour of the city. e starting (and eventually ending) point for this journey was at the Museum of Roman Civilization, which houses the Plastico di Roma Antica, a physical model of ancient Rome. e historically accurate model was craft- ed over a 40-year period beginning in 1933 by model makers working for the city un- der the direction of archaeologist Italo Gis- mondi. As new discoveries were made, they were incorporated into the model. When construction ceased in 1973, a year before Frischer fi rst laid eyes on it, the 1 / 250 -scale model measured 60 feet across and was viewed from a balcony above. "It was considered as accurate of a rep- resentation of Rome in the 4 th century AD as the evidence permits us to reconstruct," notes Frischer. e model, like its eventual digital iteration, is based on information garnered from excavations and archaeo- logical data. Today, the model itself is considered a historic monument, and when viewing it, "visitors get an integrated vision of what Rome looked like at its peak during the Roman Empire," explains Frischer. "When people see it for the fi rst time, their breath is knocked out of them. e beauty and the scope is astonishing—it was a city of one million-plus people, with 7000 buildings." e impact of this museum piece certain- ly was not lost on Frischer. With his back- ground in both the sciences and the arts, he began to wonder if there wasn't some technology that would fi guratively take this monument out of its fairly obscure museum in the suburb of Rome and place it in the hands of the general public and classrooms around the world. " e obvious way to do so at the time was through 35mm photog- raphy, which meant taking a lot of pictures and slides, which I did," he says. An Evolution of Ideas After leaving Rome, Frischer began teaching at UCLA, where he remained for 28 years. While there, he shared his photos with col- leagues in related fi elds. Yet, he continued to seek a better, more encompassing solution for publishing the Rome model, in all its integrity, as a whole, not as a series of parts. "A slide provides a fi xed view, a single com- ponent. I wanted to capture the scope and grandeur of the model by moving around seamlessly from one item to the next in the city," Frischer explains. A seed was planted in his mind after talking with Donald Apple- yard, an urban planner who also just hap- pened to have been a senior resident at the American Academy, as well. "At the time, Donald told me about a process being developed at the University of California, Berkeley for city planning, whereby physical models were videotaped and then added into general video shots of the city, showing how the building would look in that location," recalls Frischer. "We discussed how this approach could be used for the Rome monument." at was in the 1970s, and over the decades, the solution (Top) To bring Rome back to life, "everyday" structures were added to the cityscape, augmenting the main pieces, such as the Circus Maximus, shown here to the right. (Below) This close-up offers a detailed look at those structures, which also were crafted based on historical data. Images courtesy Procedural.

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