Page 262 - AC/E's Digital Culture Annual Report 2015

AC/E Digital Culture Annual Report 2015262any project, for example a videogame. It offers a host of ways of disseminating the museum’s collections and interacting with them.This project has been made possible by the museum’s collaboration with the technology firm Sketchfab.119 It was set up using WebGL- JavaScript API, which makes it possible for any browser to view and interact with 3D models and also download and print them.Ending with Egypt, the US company Dassault Systèmes, together with Harvard University and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, has developed the Giza3D project which basically allows the Giza plateau to be visited virtually through its website.120 The extensive collection of photographs, diaries, drawings and docu- ments on Giza in the last ten years has helped reconstruct the necropolis as accurately as possible. All these files have been duly digitised and also uploaded to the project’s website.Projects of this kind are a further development of what has been called “virtual recreation”, which is used above all to reconstruct ancient buildings or archaeological remains. Current 3D technology is a logical and much more effective evolution of these early virtual representations that were already being developed, especially in the last twenty years of the twentieth century.As in the abovementioned example of the Gaza plateau, members of the CSIC are currently working at the Escuela de Estudios Árabes in Granada121 on the Palacio de Pedro I in the Real Alcázar of Seville. They have also worked on other projects on the Alcázar and on the culture of Muslim Spain in general.122A similar case, albeit funded privately, is Ad Legionem,123 a 3D reconstruction promoted by Revives.es, which brings to light the Roman archaeological site with the same name: a civilian population centre linked to the Roman camp from which the city of León emerged.In fact, the focus on reproducing or recreating spaces, historical objects and works of art is proving to be one of the most widely used, espe- cially in relation to the historical and cultural heritage of several countries. Microsoft recently joined forces with a not-for-profit organisation, CyArk,124 to create a digital file of the most famous historic sites in the world. This alliance is intended to compile a record of mankind’s treasures and prevent them from possible natural disasters or manmade actions such as war or terrorism.Some of its finished projects are the Mount Rushmore National Memorial in the United States, Ancient Thebes and the Necropolis of Ramses II in Egypt, Chichén Itzá, the ancient centre of pilgrimage and the Mayan site of Yucatán in Mexico, and Pompeii, the ancient Roman city. The technology used can capture 1.3 million 3D data points per second to create 3D models of cities and monuments.Another of the applications of 3D technology is the physical and not just virtual collections of museums. One of the first institutions to embrace this application was the Smithsonian, with the assistance of Autodesk, a leading developer of 3D design software.As part of the programme for digitising the collections of this important US institution, aFocus 2015. Museums and New Technologies