Bernard Frischer

Indiana University Bloomington | IUB · Department of Informatics

This article uses a large 3D reconstruction of ancient Rome called "Rome Reborn" as a tool to generate new insights and discoveries about the experience of visiting the city in late antiquity. Two case studies about the monuments called "rostra" ("speakers' platforms") in the Roman Forum form the focus of the study. It is argued that the primary fu...

Many cultures worldwide have left traces of sacred architecture and monuments which often show correlation to astronomical events like solstitial sunrises. Virtual archaeology can be used to explore such orientation patterns using digital reconstructions and positions of celestial objects computed from modern astronomical models. Most 3D editing sy...

The chapter first analyzes the reasons for digitizing Cultural Heritage (CH), tracing the history of applying 3D technologies for the purpose of digitizing CH, and reviewing the current state of the art in the field. A detailed survey is offered for the digitization of different types of both tangible and intangible CH. The latter includes a sectio...

In the last few years, the open-source desktop planetarium program Stellarium has become ever more popular for research and dissemination of results in Cultural Astronomy. In this time we (LBI ArchPro and TU Wien) have added significant capabilities for applications in Cultural Astronomy to the program, in particular a way to allow virtual 3D explo...

When I first began my teaching career in 1976 at the University of California, Los Angeles, the subject of Roman topography was difficult to teach to English-speaking students. Most of the scholarship was written in Italian, and much of the rest was in French and German. Over the past 40 years the situation has changed significantly. We now have tw...

This paper gives a general overview of a large-scale 3D digitization project involving the ca. 1250 ancient sculptures owned by the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. The project is coordinated and sponsored by Indiana University with the technical support of Politecnico di Milano and the advice of a scientific committee of experts in the fields of art hi...

The article takes as its point of departure recent work (Frischer forthcoming) critiquing the theory of Edmund Buchner about the relationship of the gnomonical instrument known as the Horologium Augusti and the Ara Pacis Augustae. As a result of this critique, the Montecitorio Obelisk could be situated with greater precision on the map of the city....

This article reports on research undertaken to determine the validity of Edmund Buchner’s theories that the Horologium Augusti had an Augustan and a Flavian phase; and that the Montecitorio Obelisk was aligned to the Ara Pacis such that during the day of Augustus’ birthday (September 23, according to Buchner) the shadow of the obelisk proceeded dow...

The archaeological site at Hadrian's Villa (Tivoli, Italy) conventionally called the Antinoeion was used as a test- bed for studying the utility of simulation environments for archaeoastronomical research. The site consists of a sanctuary with three temples facing an open plaza which may, or may not, have had an obelisk in the center. Two reconstru...

The Digital Hadrian's Villa Project: Virtual World Technology as an Aid to Finding Alignments between Built and Celestial Features Bernard Frischer1 John Fillwalk2 1Director, Virtual World Heritage Laboratory, University of Virginia 2Director, IDIA Lab, Ball State University Hadrian’s Villa is the best known and best preserved of the i...

This paper discusses the way in which virtual reality applications of cultural heritage monuments can be considered a contemporary example of mnemotechnics.

In Greek myth, Niobe was the queen of Thebes who displayed arrogance toward the goddess Leto and was punished by having to endure the death of her seven sons and seven daughters at the hands of Leto's children, Artemis and Apollo. A fourth-century BC group of 16 statues (Niobe, the fourteen children, and a male figure known as the Pedagogue) surviv...

3D modeling was first introduced into the fields of archaeology and art history in the early 1990s as a new form of illustration derived from the traditional paper-based plan, section, and elevation. In recent years, it has become clear that once we have an accurate 3D restoration model of a lost or damaged cultural heritage monument, we can use th...

This paper discusses how the Digital Hadrian's Villa Project has used virtual world technology to control the validity of a claimed alignment between the sun's position at sunset on the summer solstice during the reign of Hadrian (117-138 CE) and the tower structure at Hadrian's Villa known as Roccabruna. The conclusion is reached that virtual worl...

From 1997 to 2007 an international effort involving research groups both in US and Italy, developed a virtual model of ancient Rome, as it appeared in 320 AD. The primary purpose of the project was to visually present theories and hypotheses about how the capital of the Roman Empire appeared at the peak of its development. The model is therefore a...

This paper places the digital humanities generally and virtual archaeology in particular into the larger context of the evolution of the arts and sciences from antiquity through the Middle Ages and Renaissance to the present, postmodern period.The argument is made that the basis of virtual reality representations of cultural objects is not primaril...

Rome Reborn is a virtual reconstruction of the entire city of ancient Rome at the height of its urban development in 320 AD. The model consists of two kinds of digital reconstructions: Class I elements (whose position, identification, and design are known with great accuracy); and Class II elements (whose building type and location are known only i...

The site and its locationThe identification of the site a s Horace's VillaExcavations of the siteNew fieldworkResidenceThe bath complexQuadriporticus and gardenPhasing of the wallsThe ownersConclusion

The increasing creation of 3D cultural heritage models has resulted in a need for the establishment of centralized digital archives. We advocate open repositories of scientifically authenticated 3D models based on the example of traditional scholarly journals, with standard mechanisms for preservation, peer review, publication, updating, and dissem...

Information technology developments over the past 3 decades have profoundly influenced university scholarship, but the relationship has been characterized by aspects of both continuity and change. This panel of presentations and ensuing discussion consider ways in which these developments drive changes in scholarly practice and present challenges f...

IncreTable is a tabletop game inspired by the Incredible Machine. It provides a multi-modal interaction based on a bi-directional projection tabletop, digital pens, a depth camera, and custom-made physical objects, while attracting users for an active ...

Computer technologies and digital recreations have been widely used in the field of Cultural Heritage in the past decade. However, most of the effort has concentrated in accurate data gathering and geometrical representation of buildings and sites. Only very recently, works are starting to go beyond that approach by including digital people. The im...

In the past decade, the application of 3D computer technology to cultural heritage has been widely accepted by archaeologists, architectural historians, and cultural authorities. This paper argues that the field of virtual heritage now faces two challenges: campanilismo, or the privileging of local heritage over global heritage; and the lack of pre...

Computer technologies and digital recreations have been widely used in the field of Cultural Heritage in the past decade. However, most of the effort has concentrated in accurate data gathering and geometrical representation of buildings and sites. Only very recently, works are starting to go beyond that approach by including digital people, perfor...

This paper describes 3D acquisition and modeling of the "Plastico di Roma antica", a large plaster-of-Paris model of imperial Rome (16×17 meters) created in the last century. Its overall size demands an acquisition approach typical of large structures, but it is also characterized by extremely tiny details, typical of small objects: houses are a fe...

This document is intended to stimulate thinking about the role of the library in the digital age, about the potential--and the imperative--for libraries to meet new needs, and about how these needs will influence the design of physical space. The goal of this document is to expose an array of perspectives on the future of the library and to describ...

Cultural heritage digitization is becoming more common every day, but the applications discussed in the literature address mainly the digitization of objects at a resolution proportional to the object size, using low resolution for large artifacts such as buildings or large statues, and high resolution for small detailed objects. The case studied i...

1. Abstract This paper presents an account of a project jointly undertaken from 2001 to 2003 by UCLA and the Ocean Institute (Dana Point, California) to create an interactive virtual reality exhibit about archaeological objects found at Port Royal, Jamaica. The intended users of the exhibit were schoolchildren and other visitors to the Ocean Instit...

A recent paper by Frischer et al. (forthcoming) examines the position of the direct object and its governing verb in works in Classical Greek and Latin. The paper confirms the SOV ordering expected in texts in Latin, and the S(O)V(O) ordering expected in texts written in Greek. Texts written in Greek by Cassius Dio were found to have a Latinate wor...

The article uses a statistical approach to confirm the observation that Latin authors generally put the verb at the end of a clause whereas in Greek the verb floats more freely. Several exceptional cases are identified and explained, including, notably, Cassius Dio.

Recent work by Meissner, and Tse and Frischer examines the variability of function words within the Scriptores Historiae Augustae (SHA) and other texts by Latin authors. In this paper, we correct the methodological flaws, both statistical and textual, of these works. We examine the variability of function words using van Valen’s test for equality o...

This book focuses on Horace's Ars Poetica--its date, title, and genre. the poem is dated to the late 20s BC. Its title is "Ars Poetica," not (e.g.) "Epistula ad Pisones." The genre is mock-didactic.

This paper focuses on a short term plan for a computerized multimedia expert system in the field of the classics that is under development at the University of California at Los Angeles. Noting both increased enrollments in classics courses and the problems associated with finding textbooks for courses in ancient civilizations that cover a variety...

The article proposes a new interpretation of this problematic poem.

This article considers the question of the origin of the Roman civic monument as distinct from public tombs and cenotaphs.

The UCLA Cultural Virtual Reality Laboratory (CVRLab; www.cvrlab.org) was founded in 1997 with the mission of creating scientifically authenticated 3D computer models of cultural heritage sites around the world. This paper will present an overview of the lab's projects, methodology, and the applications of the lab's products to research and instruc...

From 1997 to 2002 the UCLA Cultural Virtual Reality Laboratory created a digital model of the Roman Forum. The model contains the 22 major elements of the Forum. In this paper the project is described, its rationale is given, and the modelling methodology and technology are explained.

This paper places the digital humanities generally and virtual archaeology in particular into the larger context of the evolution of the arts and sciences from antiquity through the Middle Ages and Renaissance to the present, postmodern period.The argument is made that the basis of virtual reality representations of cultural objects is not primaril...

This paper discusses the development process in building the "Ancient Rome 3D" layer in Google Earth in 2008. The layer contains a 3D model of Rome in A.D. 320, showing more than 7,000 buildings. More than 200 of the better-known buildings and features are marked with information balloons, which have links to external HTML pages that contain descri...