[MR] Fwd: [johnmacsgroup] Google Earth recreates Ancient Rome

[David Chessler]

------ Original Message ------
Received: Sun, 16 Nov 2008 12:47:35 AM EST
From: Lizard <lizard at mrlizard.com>
To: johnmacsgroup at yahoogroups.com
Subject: [johnmacsgroup] Google Earth recreates Ancient Rome

Can you zoom in on orgies?
=======================
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iTaV7Lu7CnTQBzTcpKnkVWMxIMbQD94DLDV80

Ancient Rome goes online with Google Earth

By ARIEL DAVID – 3 days ago

ROME (AP) — Obviously, there were no satellites to snap pictures of Rome 
two millennia ago. But that hasn't stopped experts from giving Web 
surfers a bird's eye view of the ancient city.

Google Earth has added to its software a 3-D simulation that 
painstakingly reconstructs nearly 7,000 buildings of ancient Rome, 
including the Colosseum, the Forum and the Circus Maximus, officials 
said Wednesday.

The program, which gives users access to maps and global satellite 
imagery, now hosts a new layer that allows surfers to see how Rome might 
have looked in A.D. 320, a bustling city of about 1 million people under 
Emperor Constantine.

Pop-up windows provide information on the monuments and visitors also 
can enter some of the most important sites, including the Senate and the 
Colosseum, to observe the architecture and marble decorations, Google 
Italia and the city of Rome said in a joint statement.

Google Earth's "Ancient Rome 3-D," which was unveiled Wednesday at a 
news conference in city hall, is based on a simulation created by an 
international team led by the University of Virginia and the University 
of California.

Using laser scans of today's ruined monuments and advice from 
archaeologists, experts worked for about a decade to reconstruct ancient 
Rome within its 13-mile-long (21-kilometer-long) walls, said Bernard 
Frischer, who heads Virginia's Institute for Advanced Technology in the 
Humanities.

The simulation, which was completed in 2007, was intended as a scholarly 
tool to study the ancient buildings and run experiments on them — for 
example to determine their crowd capacity.

Frischer said the work's publication on the Internet means it can be 
used for broader educational purposes. Google has started a competition 
for U.S. teachers offering prizes for the best curriculum that uses the 
new tool.

More ancient sites may be available in the future on the Web, and 
Frischer said his team is already working on a reconstruction of 
colonial Williamsburg in Virginia.

"It makes sense little sense for ancient Rome to be the only ancient 
site offered in Google Earth," he said. "It offers an ideal platform on 
which we can publish such work, be it of Giza in Old Kingdom Egypt or 
Athens in the age of Pericles."


------------------------------------

Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/johnmacsgroup/

<*> Your email settings:
    Individual Email | Traditional

<*> To change settings online go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/johnmacsgroup/join
    (Yahoo! ID required)

<*> To change settings via email:
    mailto:johnmacsgroup-digest at yahoogroups.com 
    mailto:johnmacsgroup-fullfeatured at yahoogroups.com

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
    johnmacsgroup-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
    http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/