I hear ancient Rome’s lovely this time of year

From the New York Times, a report on a really creative use of Google Earth’s imaging capabilities. I’d long ago thought that the kind of computer imaging you get on video games would make an excellent “virtual tourism” tool, but I hadn’t considered the possibility of being a tourist in the past. Perhaps in the future we’ll be able to go to any historical site online — say Nalanda monastery in Bihar, India — and be able to wander around virtually, watching the site as it evolved over time, but at a greatly accelerated rate. Throw in a few avatars, and then have some of those avatars managed in real time by historical reenactment enthusiasts who can interact with visitors and answer their questions and you’d have an amazing learning tool.

First Google Earth turned millions of Internet users into virtual travelers who could fly to any spot on the globe. Then its Sky feature took them to other galaxies. Now Google Earth has embraced a frontier dating back 17 centuries: ancient Rome under Constantine the Great.

Soaring above a virtual reconstruction of the Forum and the Palatine Hill or zooming into the Colosseum to get a lion’s-eye view of the stands, Google Earth’s 400 million users will be able to explore the ancient capital as easily “as any city can be explored today,” Michael T. Jones, chief technology officer of Google Earth, said Wednesday at a news conference at Rome’s city hall.

Ancient Rome 3D, as the new feature is known, is a digital elaboration of some 7,000 buildings recreating Rome circa A.D. 320, at the height of Constantine’s empire, when more than a million inhabitants lived within the city’s Aurelian walls.

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