Switched has a new home! Huffpost Tech.

Click here to visit the new home of Switched!

Hot on HuffPost Tech:

See More Stories
AOL Tech

When in (Virtual) Rome

by Evan Shamoon on June 13, 2007 at 05:31 PM

When in (Virtual) Rome

With all of its crumbling buildings and statues, why is everybody so high on Rome? We're kidding of course, but haven't you ever wanted to explore Rome as it was in its full, vibrant, non-collapsing glory? Now you can, and it doesn't involve pausing 'Gladiator' every time a shot of the city is shown.

Rome Reborn is a complete, 3-D simulation of Rome as it was in 320 A.D., constructed over the course of 10 years by a team of archaeologists, architects and computer specialists from the University of Virginia and UCLA, as well as researchers in Italy, Germany and Britain. The simulation has cost $2 million to put together and reconstructs 7,000 buildings -- 30 of which you can walk into and explore.

On the same computer software architects use to design new buildings, the team used laser scans of Rome today along with historical information provided by archeologists to make the virtual Rome as realistic as possible. Even the statues and monuments have been restored to what they would have looked like.

Right now, portions of the project are available online -- though only as images and video. Fortunately, the project is in talks with Linden Labs to bring Rome Reborn -- in its entirety -- to the virtual online world, 'Second Life.' Once that happens ... man, what a scene those Roman baths are going to be.

From USA Today

Related Links:

Add your comments

Please keep your comments relevant to this blog entry. Email addresses are never displayed, but they are required to confirm your comments.

When you enter your name and email address, you'll be sent a link to confirm your comment, and a password. To leave another comment, just use that password.

To create a live link, simply type the URL (including http://) or email address and we will make it a live link for you. You can put up to 3 URLs in your comments. Line breaks and paragraphs are automatically converted — no need to use <p> or <br /> tags.

HuffPost AOL Social News Most Popular