Google Earth Zooms Through Time as Well as Space to Reconstruct Ancient Rome

Elisabetta Povoledo, in the New York Times, reports that Google Earth has zoomed in on a virtual reconstruction of Rome as it was in 320 A.D., the reign of Constantine. The eye-popping techno-archeological feat, bringing back to life some 7000 buildings, has been the driving passion of Bernard Frischer, director of the University of Virginia’s Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities. It's called Rome Reborn, a three dimensional re-creation that Dr. Frischer has been developing for three decades. As computer tools enabled him to realize his dream, work began in earnest in 1996 at a number of venues. Read about it in the New York Times and see a demo on Google.

Visitors to the ancient city can now carry their iPhone instead of guidebooks, stand on a ruin and zoom in on that very place to understand just what they're looking at.

RC