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Tour African Monuments Online
Cherita Chen writes "Heinz Ruther, professor of Geomatics at the University of Cape Town, looks to provide a "Virtual tour of Africa's heritage". http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4507454.st m "Africans will soon be able to take an online tour of the continent's major world heritage sites like Great Zimbabwe, the rock-hewn St Giyorgis church at Lalibella in Ethiopia and the great mosque of Djenne in Mali.""
Main Entry: geomatics
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: a science concerned with using mathematical methods on data about the earth's surface
Usage: science
this story would be fairly interesting if not for the shoddy "how can we get people interested?" approach. shame on you, /. for picking up on the damn tourism angle.
for example, from TFA:
"It's going to be a scholarly database - it won't just be pretty pictures," he said.
well, i would damn well hope so. the aim here isn't tourism. this stuff isn't going to be used primarily for a 3D tour at visitmali.com. the digital imaging being done at these sites is rescue archaeological work, aimed at preserving these bits of history for future generations of students and scholars far into the future.
granted, some of the money now going to laser scanning and photogrammetry might be better used shoring up the preservation funding the article takes care to mention is lacking, letting these monuments disintegrate, but preserving them in replicable digital form will make them accessible to people who might want to study these works long after they've crumbled or been bombed into dust.
/. is what happens when geeks talk. get used to it.
Sadly, the pyramids are not all that impressive up close either. Granted, the structures themselves are prett awe-inspiring, but the surrounding area killed a lot of the experience for me. I didn't mind the state of the residential areas around Giza, as they are representative of average housing in Cairo, but the amount of debris and junk in the undeveloped desert immediately surrounding the pyramids themselves is quite disgusting. I saw several rotting carcasses of horses and donkeys among plastic wrappers, bags of household garbage, and construction debris. As one of the world's most important and interesting heritage sites, the lack of interest the Egyptian government shows in keeping it clean and inviting for visitors is just one stop short of apalling. So I'm pretty sure that although a 19-incher might be a bit underwhelming, a seriously sized projection of a 3D flythrough could be every bit as fascinating an experience, seen as a whole, as actually visiting.
get a Free BSD!