Presentation video for the City and Spectacle: A Vision of Pre-Earthquake Lisbon virtual archeology project, which is implementing a possible representation of the Baroque Lisbon of 1755 just before the earthquake destroyed it.

The technology used is Second Life/OpenSimulator and the research project will allow visitors to be immersed in the virtual environment and participate in interactive historical events with other users across the world, simultaneously and in real time.

This project is integrated in the “Connecting Cities” framework of the CHAIA research centre.

Research Team

Maria Alexandra Gago da Câmara (Art Historian, Open University, CHAIA)
Maria Helena Murteira (Art Historian, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, CHAIA)
Paulo Alexandre Rodrigues (Art Historian, University of Evora, CHAIA)

Production Team

Silvana Moreira (Modeler, Beta Technologies)
Luís Miguel Sequeira (System Administrator, Beta Technologies)

Video Production

Jeff Bush (Producer, Beta Technologies)
Michael Sudyn (Editor, Flying Dreams Inc.)
Phil Lee (Narration, CityVox)

Partners

CHAIA
Beta Technologies
King’s Visualisation Lab (King’s College)

Lisbon, May 21, 2010

Workshop organized in the scope of the City and Spectacle: a vision of pre-earthquake Lisbon project, a virtual recreation of the city of Lisbon before the 1755 earthquake, using Second Life® technology.

A pioneer project in Portugal, it is being developed by the Centre for History of Art and Artistic Research of the University of Évora (CHAIA), the company Beta Technologies, and the King’s Visualisation Lab (KVL), King’s College London.

Participants in this workshop included Bernard Frischer, Director of the Virtual World Heritage Laboratory, University of Virginia and scientific coordinator of the pioneer project Rome Reborn, a virtual recreation of Classic Rome; Richard Beacham, Director of the King’s Visualisation Lab, King’s College London, an institution focused on the application of the virtual language to historical research; Drew Baker, researcher and one of the founders of this institution; Ana Cristina Leite, Director of the Lisbon City Museum; António Filipe Pimentel, Director of the Portuguese National Museum of Ancient Art; Alexandra Gago da Câmara, researcher of CHAIA; Carlos Tavares Ribeiro, member of the Scientific Committee of the company VERSUS – 3D interactive development in the Web; Cristina Gouveia, representantive of the company YDreams – specialists in interactive technologies; Helena Murteira, researcher of CHAIA; Luís Sequeira, representantive of the company Beta Technologies – Architects of the Virtual World; Paulo Rodrigues, researcher of CHAIA; Ricardo Branco, representative of the Cultural Itineraries of the Tourism Association of Lisbon and Vítor Cóias, Director of GECoRPA – Group of companies for the conservation and restoration of architectural heritage.

Workshop organizado no âmbito do projecto Cidade e Espectáculo: uma visão da Lisboa pré-terramoto (City and Spectacle: a vision of pre-earthquake Lisbon), uma recriação virtual, a partir da plataforma de mundos virtuais Second Life®, da memória da Lisboa destruída pelo terramoto de 1 de Novembro de 1755.

Projecto pioneiro em Portugal, resulta de uma colaboração entre o Centro de História de Arte e Investigação Artística da Universidade de Évora (CHAIA), a empresa Beta Technologies e o King’s Visualisation Lab (KVL), King’s College London.

A recriação virtual de cidades históricas é uma área emergente da pesquisa histórica, permitindo uma abordagem inovadora ao estudo e representação do Património Cultural. Presentemente, os mundos virtuais substituem os instrumentos clássicos de modelação em 3D, ao possibilitarem aos utilizadores interagir num espaço comum e de fácil construção. Estas características fomentam a coordenação entre investigadores na confirmação das hipóteses históricas e, consequentemente, a actualização dinâmica do objecto de estudo. A aplicação da linguagem virtual à pesquisa histórica traduz-se, assim, num modelo de laboratório que potencia e alarga o contexto tradicional da segunda. Em concreto, esta nova abordagem possibilita testar, numa representação tridimensional interactiva, um longo percurso de investigação em história da cidade e disponibiliza, a um público simultaneamente especializado e alargado, uma experiência imersiva numa realidade urbana desaparecida.

O workshop conta com a participação de Bernard Frischer, Director do Virtual World Heritage Laboratory, University of Virginia e coordenador científico do projecto pioneiro Rome Reborn, uma recriação virtual da Roma Clássica; Richard Beacham, Director do King’s Visualisation Lab, King’s College London, organismo vocacionado para a aplicação da linguagem virtual à pesquisa histórica; Drew Baker, investigador e um dos fundadores desta estrutura; Ana Cristina Leite, Directora do Museu da Cidade; António Filipe Pimentel, Director do Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga; Alexandra Gago da Câmara, investigadora do CHAIA; Carlos Tavares Ribeiro, Conselho Científico da empresa VERSUS –  interacção em 3D na Web; Cristina Gouveia, representante da empresa YDreams – especialistas em tecnologias de interacção; Helena Murteira, investigadora do CHAIA; José Sarmento de Matos, Olisipógrafo e coordenador científico dos Itinerários Culturais da Associação de Turismo de Lisboa; Luís Sequeira, representante da empresa Beta Technologies – Architects of the Virtual World; Paulo Rodrigues, investigador do CHAIA e Vítor Cóias, Director do GECoRPA – Grémio das empresas de conservação e restauro do património arquitectónico.

Para mais informações, por favor contactar Paulo Rodrigues através do e-mail virtualcities.chaia@gmail.com.

Workshop organized in the scope of  the City and Spectacle: a vision of pre-earthquake Lisbon project, a virtual recreation of the city of Lisbon before the 1755 earthquake, using Second Life® technology.

A pioneer project in Portugal, it is promoted by the Centre for History of Art and Artistic Research of the University of Évora (CHAIA), the company Beta Technologies, and the King’s Visualisation Lab (KVL), King’s College London.

The virtual recreation of historical cities is an emerging area of research, allowing an innovative approach to the study and representation of cultural heritage. Currently, virtual worlds replace the classic instruments of 3D modelling, allowing users to interact in a easily built common space. These characteristics foster coordination between researchers when confirming historical hypotheses, providing the object of study to be dynamically changed. The application of the virtual language to historical research thus translates into a laboratory model that enables and expands the traditional context of the latter. This new approach allows testing, in an interactive three-dimensional representation, a long research path in urban history. It also provides to an audience simultaneously specialised and enlarged an immersive experience in a lost urban reality.

Participants in this workshop include Bernard Frischer, Director of the Virtual World Heritage Laboratory, University of Virginia and scientific coordinator of the pioneer project Rome Reborn, a virtual recreation of Classic Rome; Richard Beacham, Director of the King’s Visualisation Lab, King’s College London, an institution focused on the application of the virtual language to historical research; Drew Baker, researcher and one of the founders of this institution; Ana Cristina Leite, Director of the Lisbon City Museum; António Filipe Pimentel, Director of the Portuguese National Museum of Ancient Art; Alexandra Gago da Câmara, researcher of CHAIA; Carlos Tavares Ribeiro, member of the Scientific Committee of the company VERSUS – 3D interactive development in the Web; Cristina Gouveia, representantive of the company YDreams – specialists in interactive technologies; Helena Murteira, researcher of CHAIA; José Sarmento de Matos, specialist in Lisbon studies and scientific coordinator of the Cultural Itineraries of the Tourism Association of Lisbon; Luís Sequeira, representantive of the company Beta Technologies – Architects of the Virtual World; Paulo Rodrigues, researcher of CHAIA; and Vítor Cóias, Director of GECoRPA – Group of companies for the conservation and restoration of architectural heritage.

For more informations, please contact Paulo Rodrigues via e-mail virtualcities.chaia@gmail.com

The façades of the Opera House were redone, as well as the Palace Gardens. The Clock Tower by Canevari was more accurately modelled. Thanks to a reasonably detailed blueprint for the Patriarchal Church, this whole area was done from scratch, with the western façades inspired by an existing engraving showing one of the remaining buildings. The blueprint also shows a far more precise layout of Capela Street in the decade before the earthquake, which implied a major change of the existing modelled street.

Thanks to a more advanced rendering engine developed by Linden Lab for their Second Life viewer, the new images and the video below are now able to display projected shadows. The underlying server technology was upgraded to OpenSimulator 0.6.6.

Developed for CHAIA (University of Évora) by Beta Technologies, it was presented at the 15^th International Conference on Virtual Systems and Multimedia (VSMM 2009), which took place in Vienna, Austria, 9-12 September, 2009.

Video