Virtual World Heritage Laboratory

Projects

• Digital Sculpture: 3D digital modeling often encounters a barrier when confronted with the kind of complex geometry that characterizes most sculpture. The VWHL is pioneering new solutions and applications in this important but neglected area of the digital humanities. [Project Website]

• Hadrian's Villa: The best preserved imperial villa is being recreated in 3D by the VWHL and used as a testbed for experiments in Roman cultural geography. [Project Website]

• Rome Reborn: This acclaimed project has created the biggest 3D digital model of a cultural heritage object ever made: a representation of how Rome appeared at the height of its urban development in 320 CE. [Project Website]

• SAVE: Several thousand scientific 3D digital models of cultural artifacts have been created over the past decade as digital humanists have embraced new 3D technologies. Ironically, the scholars who have worked so hard to preserve the world's cultural heritage have rarely paid attention to how their own contributions will survive in the coming decades. SAVE ("Serving and Archiving Virtual Environments") is a long-term study of what needs to be done to ensure that our new born-digital 3D cultural heritage does not suffer from what Mary Feeny has hauntingly called the "death of the digit." [Project Website]