Principal Investigators

Easter 1916

Schreibman

Denard

Hadrian’s Villa

Bernard Frischer

John Fillwalk

Lhasa

David Germano

RomeLab

Christopher Johanson

Virtual World Platform

John Fillwalk (IDIA Lab)

Chris Collins

John De Mott

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Our Mission

I. Project Summary

The 1990s saw the development of digital technologies supporting the 3D (three dimensional) modeling of cultural heritage objects and environments. For the first time, humanists could digitally model and reconstruct the damaged or vanished monuments of the past. The results were typically 2D renderings or videos (“animations”). The decade of the 2000s saw the enhancement of 3D environments with avatars making it possible for scholars to enter into the 3D world and to use the Internet to interact with the simulated environment while communicating with fellow humanists located anywhere on the planet. Such software platforms are called networked virtual worlds (NVWs). The Humanities Virtual World Consortium (HVWC) will explore how the unique characteristics of  networked virtual worlds can enable and advance humanistic research while working towards creating a sustainable base for mainstreaming the technology in humanities scholarship.

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Our Software

The Shared Platform

Platform Development

The array of specific goals from individual projects have led the Consortium to identify a subset of shared infrastructure requirements to be implemented during the two-year time frame in the common networked virtual worlds platform. The infrastructure development goals are threefold: 1) Create a template Unity3D development environment that will enable the core participants of the Consortium to quickly create Virtual World experiences based on a shared development environment; 2) Create a robust Content Management system that will enable Consortium members to add the full range of associated assets required for a complex Virtual World experience; 3) Develop a malleable front-end that can be installed at any host institution to allow readers to browse the available projects while also providing persistent and direct URIs to the Networked Virtual-World based arguments—in fact, a multi-dimensional variation on a traditional article—as proposed in the individual projects above.

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Questions or comments?

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