International Team Rebuilds Ancient Rome Digitally

Walter Veltroni, the mayor of Rome, is scheduled to officiate in June 2007 over the first public viewing of "Rome Reborn 1.0,” a ten-year project initiated at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) to rebuild ancient Rome digitally on the computer. The result is the biggest, most complete simulation of an historic city ever created, thanks to the commitment and expertise of UCLA scholars and students working at the ETC in collaboration with archaeologists, architects and computer specialists from Italy, the United States, Britain, and Germany.

The Rome model shows almost the entire city within the 13-mile-long Aurelian Walls as it appeared in the year 320 AD. At that time Rome was the multicultural capital of the western world and had reached the peak of its development with an estimated population of one million. “Rome Reborn 1.0” is a true 3D model that runs in real time. Users can navigate through the model with complete freedom, moving up, down, left and right at will. They can enter important public buildings such as the Roman Senate House, the Colosseum, or the Temple of Venus and Rome, the ancient city’s largest place of worship.

In recent years scientists, historians, and archaeologists around the world have embraced 3D modeling of cultural heritage sites. Information technology has permitted them to recreate buildings and monuments that no longer exist or to restore digitally sites that have been damaged with the passage of time. The results can be used both in research to test new theories and in teaching to take students on virtual tours of the historical sites they are studying. By several orders of magnitude, “Rome Reborn 1.0” is the most ambitious such project ever undertaken.

Diane Favro, co-initiator of "Rome Reborn" and director of the Experiential Technologies Center at UCLA said, “This amazing model allows us to appreciate individual buildings of ancient Rome within a broad urban context, and thus also to understand how the modern city took shape over time. In addition, the model now serves as a laboratory where students and scholars in the humanities can conduct experiments much as is done by their colleagues in the sciences. The numerous UCLA students involved in the research and creation of the Rome Reborn model, as well as those viewing it in classes, benefit from a rich, first-hand engagement with historical Rome. It is the ability to excite and inform viewers of all ages that makes such immersive recreations so compelling." Bernard Frischer, professor emeritus, Department of Classics UCLA, and director of the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities at the University of Virginia, stated, “’Rome Reborn 1.0’ is the continuation of five centuries of research by scholars, architects, and artists since the Renaissance who have attempted to restore the ruins of the ancient city with words, maps and images. Now, through hard work by our interdisciplinary team, we have realized their seemingly impossible dream.” Gabriele Guidi of INDACO Lab at the Politecnico di Milano said, “This is the first time that engineers have succeeded in creating a hybrid computer model of an entire city based on born-digital and reborn-digital elements. The project was an enormous technical challenge, and now that we have successfully met it, we can easily start building up a library of other city models in museums around the world.”

All who worked on the project give special thanks to the Comune di Roma and its Museum of Roman Civilization (Rome) for the constant support and encouragement they gave the project from the start. The first sponsors of the UCLA-based project were Mr. Kirk Mathews and the Creative Kids Education Foundation. Other sponsors have included: Alitalia, the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities at the University of Virginia, Intel, Microsoft, Multigen-Paradigm, the National Science Foundation, The Rose Family of New York, Shuttle, Tecnark Italia, UCLA Academic Technology Services, the UCLA College of Arts and Letters, the UCLA Division of Humanities, and the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture.

More information:

National Geographic News
UCLA's Roman Forum Digital Library
UVA website for Rome Reborn 1.0
Reuters
MSNBC/Newsweek
ScienceDaily
International Herald Tribune|Europe
globeandmail.com