Rome Reborn Update: New Google Earth layer of Ancient Rome - Great Idea for Engaging Interactive Whiteboard Activities

Steven Musil's recent article in CNET discusses Google Earth's 3-D view of ancient Rome. The project is an outgrowth of Rome Reborn, the effort of an interdisciplinary, international team of people, including computer scientists, artists, archaeologists, and historians from UCLA, the Politecnico di Milano (Italy), and the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.

Visitors can explore inside the city's buildings, and obtain related historical information through pop-up windows. The 3-D interaction is great on the large screen or interactive whiteboard.

I posted about the Rome Reborn

Below is the "how-to" video:




Google Earth's Ancient Roman Holiday

Rome Curriculum Competition for Educators
Prize Package:

Apple MacBook laptop
Digital classroom projector
Digital camera
3D Navigation mouse
$500 in gift cards to Target or Office Depot
Engraved Google "Top Educator" plaque

"We're accepting curricula from all grade levels and K-12 subject areas including art history, math, social studies, physics, and philosophy, so whether you teach 5th grade art or high school engineering, there's glory and a nice prize package waiting for you."



Related:
Digital Rome

Direct link to the Rome Reborn 1.0 website

I did a little hunting and found the main website for Rome Reborn 1.0, at the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities at the University of Virginia. Here is a blurb from the website about the history of Rome Reborn:

"From 1997 to 2007 the UCLA Cultural Virtual Reality Laboratory (CVRLab), the UCLA Experiential Technology Center (ECT), the Reverse Ingineering (INDACO) Lab at the Politecnico de Milano, and the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities (IATH) of the University of Virginia collaborated on a project to crate a digital model of ancient Rome as it appeared in late antiquity...."

News video about Rome Reborn:





Links:
UCLA Cultural Virtual Reality Lab
UCLA Experiential Technology Center
Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities
Politecnico di Milano

Rome Reborn, Digital Rome: 3D animated history and archaeology

A recent article posted by Tracy Staedter on the Discovery News website highlights the Rome Reborn project. Rome Reborn is a 3-D re-creation of Rome as it stood in 320 A.D. The project has involved an interdisciplinary, international team of people, including computer scientists, artists, archaeologists, and historians from UCLA, the Politecnico di Milano (Italy), and the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.

According to the article, Rome Reborn (Digital Rome) will be teaching tool as well as part of an on-line 3-D peer-reviewed journal, a place for researchers to publish and share their work on the project over time.

Here is a link to another detailed article on Ian Foster's blog about Rome Reborn/Digital Rome: http://ianfoster.typepad.com/blog/2007/06/digital_rome.html


On a related note, I am waiting in great anticipation for my Novint Falcon 3-D haptic game controller. Wouldn't it be great if we could provide people with visual impairments the chance to experience Rome Reborn in 3-D using the Novint Falcon? For more information, visit the Novint Falcon.