- Current Researchaffiliated projects
- About Uswho we are
- Our Missiongoals and outcomes
- Our Softwarethe virtual world platform
- Contact Usjoin the consortium
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
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.
read moreOur 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.
read more