Revisit Ancient Rome

Another example of how technology is being used to generate interest in something that we (meaning public at large) normally will not spend time researching. :)

You can now visit Ancient Rome without travel both in air or time via a new simulation that is available on Google Earth.

Ancient Rome 3D, as the new feature is known, is a digital elaboration of some 7,000 buildings recreating Rome circa A.D. 320, at the height of Constantine’s empire, when more than a million inhabitants lived within the city’s Aurelian walls.

It consists of about 7,000 buildings reconstructed through the efforts of Bernard Frischer, director of the University of Virginia's Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities. The project involved the collaboration of Google Earth, the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities, and Past Perfect Productions, a company whose specialty is 3D cultural heritage models.

The above video is of some of the fly-thru of this model.

NY Times Article (may require registration) : Exploring Old Rome Without Air (or Time) Travel