I chose to look at Virtual Angkor, a project aimed at digitizing the city of Angkor at its height in the 13th century. The city of Angkor was one of the largest settlements in the world at the time and the capital of the Khmer Empire in what now is modern day Cambodia. The city of Angkor differed from European cities, it was a massive sprawl supported by an agraian periphery. Virtual Angkor has reconstructed a scene of one of these peripheral villages below:
Sources
Virtual Angkor is very clear about its methods. They have a Sources tab. The Khmer were literate, writing in Sanskrit and Old Khmer, but little of their writing has survived, a result of fragile palm leaf paper. Therefore they rely on stone inscriptions instead, which survived. Another source is an eye-witness account of Angkor written by a Chinese offical in 1296 CE. He wrote about the city’s daily life and provided a detailed description of the architecture. They also draw on modern archaeological studies like the Greater Angkor Project.
Processes
In the Technology section the process is revealed. The project team didn’t want to just model the architecture of Angkor, something that has been studied in depth, but to provide a window into the world of this massive city at its height. As such, the first model they made was of an elephant, something central to both the iconography of Angkor, but also their daily lives. Then they moved onto the people, their jewellery, attire, and tools. They then modeled the environment. It’s unclear what they used to 3D model, but I could assume it’s a similar process to what we did in Fusion. They then migrated to Unity, allowing them to create these immersive scenes and 360° video panoramas of life.
Presentation
Virtual Angkor presents its reconstructions in multiple ways. They have a Teaching module that introduces various key concepts regarding the city that uses reconstructions as illustrations. This seems to be the primary function of the reconstructions on the website itself, as in the other places they’re presented they’re just given a brief description, such as in the 360° and Scenes sections. It’s presented as an educational platform on Angkor, meant for a general audience.
Final Thoughts
This may be one of the most astonishing 3D visualizations of a city I’ve ever seen. I wonder what models of other cities could show about urban settlement patterns around the globe. I think that because Virtual Angkor was so thorough on describing its methods it would be a great place to start for other city visualizations.
