This is SO cool! Not just the VR, but that organizations are willing to counteract the barbarism-apathy and keep the artifacts alive. What a great teaching tool … hope it works.
Computer scientists, archeologists and art historians at the University of California-Berkeley are collaborating to create a virtual version of Iraq’s National Museum, reconstructing images of the museum’s smashed or stolen vases, statues and cuneiform tablets from archived photos and historical records. “The dream is to create a kind of virtual atlas of these cultural gems, and help keep any more of them from being lost,” says Ruzena Bajcsy, director of UC Berkeley’s Center for Information Technology Research, which is spearheading the effort.
Academic and cultural institutions — ranging from the University of Pennsylvania to the British Museum and the United Nations are working to build a virtual catalog of the museum’s collections. But the effort goes further than just helping catalog treasures that were lost or stolen in Baghdad — the project’s goal is to generate a much larger database, complete with photos, maps, drawings and text to illustrate the full range of Iraq’s historical artifacts. The final product will include everything from 3D images of tiny art objects to entire virtual tours of Iraqi archeological sites. “We want to make this easy to use, not only for teched-up scholars but for students and anyone else,” says Robert Price, UC Berkeley’s associate vice chancellor for research.
“The idea here is to put the best information technology at the service of the arts and humanities.”
