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Building a (Virtual) Roman Emperor's Villa

Posted by timothy on from the fly-through-the-vomitorium dept.

Nerval's Lobster writes "Scientists have been using everything from supercomputing clusters to 3D printers to virtually recreate dinosaur bones. Now another expert is trying to do something similar with the ancient imperial villa built for Roman emperor Hadrian, who ruled from 117 A.D. to 138 A.D. Hadrian's Villa is already one of the best-preserved Roman imperial sites, but that wasn't quite good enough for Indiana University Professor of Informatics Bernie Frischer, who trained as a classical philologist and archaeologist before being seduced by computers into what evolved into the academic discipline of digital analysis and reproduction of archaeological and historical works. The five-year effort to recreate Hadrian's Villa is based on information from academic studies of the buildings and grounds, as well as analyses of how the buildings, grounds and artifacts were used; the team behind it decided to go with gaming platform Unity 3D as a key part of the simulation."

50 comments

  1. Oh, come on. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Dinosaur bones, Roman villas... can someone tell me why aren't we printing 3D boobs yet?

    Get with the program, science!

    1. Re:Oh, come on. by Sarius64 · · Score: 2

      They need to make sure it's authentic. Plenty of 3D slaves to go around. Romantics always think the work magically got accomplished ever day in ancient Rome.

    2. Re:Oh, come on. by i+kan+reed · · Score: 2

      Presumably because boobs come attached to their own self-replicating mechanism.

    3. Re:Oh, come on. by g0bshiTe · · Score: 1

      Need you ask? 3d boobs in plastic when there are much better alternatives? Like say, going out and finding you a woman that actually has real ones.

      --
      I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
    4. Re:Oh, come on. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      3D boobs yet?

      Get with the program, science!

      Relax... 3D boobs will exist - that villa was full of Greek sculptures...
      But there will be some other uncomfortable art there, like Greek meanders (what in Greece call "hironios lavi" or "lavi theomahon", loosely translated as "the grip of those who fight with Gods" - http://hellenicfalanx.blogspot.gr/2011/08/h.html) that are used as a symbol from Golden Dawn -a Greek nationalist party-, and the current PC trend is to consider them as a symbol of fascism/nazism!

    5. Re:Oh, come on. by cold+fjord · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Reminds me of this bit from Isaac Asimov -

      Woman: How pleasant it would be if only we lived a hundred years ago when it was easy to get servants.
      Isaac Asimov: It would be horrible... We'd be the servants.

      --
      much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
    6. Re:Oh, come on. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just get your 3d-printer ready and some printer wax to go with it. Print a mold and add silicon. Models for printing variously stimulating thingies can be found on the Internet, multiple angles and all, with two exceptions: MRI soft tissue images are not readily available for perfect cavity reconstruction.

    7. Re:Oh, come on. by smooth+wombat · · Score: 1

      Clearly you don't understand the purpose of 3D printing. As Raj and Howard showed, you can print your own whistle. In only 3 hours!

      --
      We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
    8. Re:Oh, come on. by Smauler · · Score: 1

      I'm always confused by this... moobs are _always_ bad, and they're justboobs on a man. If people like boobs so much, there are probably plenty of candidates with them on this site.

      We've been making artificial boobs for decades, anyway.

    9. Re:Oh, come on. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      News flash for dearly departed Asimov: we're still the servants.

    10. Re:Oh, come on. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      News flash for the clueless: you might want to look into the difference between then and now. Chances are you are simply an employee, not an actual servant with all the social trappings that involved.

    11. Re:Oh, come on. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Let's see: unpaid work, check. No breaks, check. Verbal abuse, check. Laws re-constructed in an effort to make it difficult to change jobs, check

      We're just one law change away.

    12. Re:Oh, come on. by thunderclap · · Score: 1

      Dinosaur bones, Roman villas... can someone tell me why aren't we printing 3D boobs yet?

      Get with the program, science!

      Umm, they are. Its just they are attached to 3d bodies of the real dolls. What I want to know is why is the first post an attack on the health care website. At this point, it will fail. 27,000? Yes, thats a death spiral. We will be worse off in 2016 but may this be a lesson that the policies of yesteryear don't work. We cannot force people to pay for what they don't want. Yes we have an obligation to help everyone. So yes health care will continue to be like it was. SMH

    13. Re:Oh, come on. by thunderclap · · Score: 1

      Let's see: unpaid work, check. No breaks, check. Verbal abuse, check. Laws re-constructed in an effort to make it difficult to change jobs, check

      We're just one law change away.

      In your state maybe. Thats because you allowed this. This 'I don't want to vote because...' an excellent law would be one that ties your paycheck to your voting record. Those that don't vote don't get raises or get paid less that those who do. Sounds authoritarian and evil. It is. However, its the only way we would actually get rid of the garbage in Washington. You know in Australia, you are fined if you don't vote. Even better if you are repeatedly fined, you lose certain abilities in the public life. Why? Because they know you won't vote so they can take them. Lack of willingness to vote and change your life, has caused this. Remember.

    14. Re:Oh, come on. by painandgreed · · Score: 1

      Let's see: unpaid work, check. No breaks, check. Verbal abuse, check. Laws re-constructed in an effort to make it difficult to change jobs, check

      We're just one law change away.

      Well, if you weren't an Anonymous Coward and doing what must be under the table labor, that wouldn't happen to you.

  2. Website also ancient tech by rsmith · · Score: 3, Insightful

    A flash website in 2013?

    --
    Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.
    1. Re:Website also ancient tech by g0bshiTe · · Score: 2

      but, but, he'll save every one of us.

      --
      I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
    2. Re:Website also ancient tech by trongey · · Score: 1

      A flash website in 2013?

      and 2014, 2015, 2016. ....
      Just block Flash in your browser and you won't have to worry about it. There's nothing on a Flash site that would interest you anyway.

      --
      You never really know how close to the edge you can go until you fall off.
    3. Re:Website also ancient tech by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They are behind not only technically, but also in the 3D model department, these other guys already recreated much of the site (watch the vimeo video)

      http://romereborn.frischerconsulting.com/gallery-current.php

  3. Supercomputer by ftldelay · · Score: 1

    Sure, it can recreate an ancient villa, but can it run Crysis?

    1. Re:Supercomputer by g0bshiTe · · Score: 1

      Yes, oddly it was also discovered their own flash enabled website caused the supercomputer to bog down.

      --
      I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
    2. Re:Supercomputer by thunderclap · · Score: 1

      Sure, it can recreate an ancient villa, but can it run Crysis?

      of course considering the age of Crysis now. my net-book can run Crysis. So can we kill this meem?

  4. Time Enough for Love by rossdee · · Score: 1

    Give a copy to Minerva/Athena - Lazarus Long wants a house like that on Tertius

  5. School of Informatics and Computing represent! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    But I have to ask, with all the cool computational stuff IU SOIC is doing, why does a 3d model make the news?

    1. Re:School of Informatics and Computing represent! by bob_super · · Score: 1

      Over 20 years ago, I saw the 3D model of one of the biggest cathedrals ever built and destroyed.
      It was really cool cutting edge, then.

      It might be news if they had done it a few years ago with with a then-obscure game that everybody would now use to make all kinds of buildings...

    2. Re:School of Informatics and Computing represent! by Teancum · · Score: 1

      It might be news if they had done it a few years ago with with a then-obscure game that everybody would now use to make all kinds of buildings...

      It might even be something worth looking at if they provided the map file for that formerly obscure game and exported it to work on a Raspberry Pi for use in grade school classrooms. Heck, let's really make it news by having Natalie Portman giving a virutal tour of the building where an audio track recorded by her takes kids through the various parts of the building, which you can purchase for 0.01 BTC.

    3. Re:School of Informatics and Computing represent! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I cannot see where the Hot Grits are in your post

    4. Re:School of Informatics and Computing represent! by Teancum · · Score: 1

      I cannot see where the Hot Grits are in your post

      Inside of the Beowolf cluster, of course!

    5. Re:School of Informatics and Computing represent! by thunderclap · · Score: 1

      Because they are actually rebuilding it with a 3d cad machine out of plastics?

    6. Re: School of Informatics and Computing represent! by Sigg3.net · · Score: 1

      Surely not Natalie Portman? She's pretty much close to 2D.

      --
      Defining Statistics and Social Research
  6. No need for a supercomputer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    People have been simulating buildings for years. A 1980s-era PC with 64K ram and a single floppy will be more than enough.

    Methinks the gentleman is pimping his requirements to scalp a bit of extra funding...

  7. A THEME park by Provocateur · · Score: 1

    Westworld here we come...

    Time to take the toga out of my closet...hmmm Break glass in case of emergency, global warming qualifies as an emergency doesn't it?

    (Sound of glass shattering)

    --
    WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
  8. Time... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Look, I think people who are in the market for 3D printed boobs don't want to wait 18 years and 9 months...

    1. Re:Time... by g0bshiTe · · Score: 1

      I'd go you one further and say they don't want to wait n hours for the printer to finish.

      --
      I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
  9. Re:If you like your lying Democrat by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There are uncountable valid and serious reasons to oppose Obamacare, statism, lying Democrats and on and on.

    But racism and class warfare is not one of them.

    Fuck off, take your snarky trolling elsewhere, preferably back to your moms basement.

  10. What games can we play in it? by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

    Seriously. What games will work with this model?

    I bet he didn't make any of it destructible.

    --
    John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  11. Where can I get a grant? by g0bshiTe · · Score: 1

    To design a map for a video game?

    --
    I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
  12. Re:If you like your lying Democrat by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    But racism and class warfare is not one of them.

    The GP did say he used to be a liberal, and Democrats are racists and elitists, so that's how they view the world.

  13. Re:If you like your lying Democrat by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    i think this can be seen most clearly in the so-called "black cock paradox". Conservatives who oppose affirmative action and social welfare programs are usually aroused by and harbor fetishes for gigantic black cocks. Meanwhile liberal co-eds on elite campuses support all kinds of help for the inferior races but have zero interest in muddying their gene pool with a melanin coated turd.

  14. Hardly new by AlecC · · Score: 1

    I have to say that this is hardly new: people have been modelling archaeological reconstructions for quite a few years now. This may be larger than many, but it is hardly /. novel. Not that I am suggesting that it is not worth doing, or that the professor has not done well. But it is news for archaeological students and educators, not computer geeks.

    --
    Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
  15. Why a Roman one? by houghi · · Score: 2

    Why a Roman villa. Why not another one. I mean, what have the Romans ever done for us?

    --
    Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
    1. Re:Why a Roman one? by horm · · Score: 2

      The aquaduct?

  16. Re:If you like your lying Democrat by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Where in the hell are the moderators?? This thread so far is offtopic flamebait. Every single response to the original troll should be similarly modded down. This is not what I come to slashdot for. Now please get rid of this shit.

  17. OpenSIm by nurb432 · · Score: 1

    Too bad it wasn't released as an opensim OAR.

    --
    ---- Booth was a patriot ----
  18. Re:If you like your lying Democrat by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Perhaps but lots of you slasldot techie hipster doofus assholes are socialist big government Obama supporters and then pretend to somehow support Obama and at the same time reject big government interference of individual liberty and rights (Obama and big government of course win everytime in such a dichotomy, but there you are). Yes a few around here are true conservatives - but only a few.

    So the pro Obama - pro big government - pro Obamacare posting here is greater than zero, a good deal greater in fact.

    So in short you assholes had no small part in electing Obama and the extremist Democrat cabal currently in charge that gave us the current tyranny and Obamacare.

    I'm here to educate you. If it saves JUST ONE CHILD THEN IT"S WORTH IT!

    Oh and I'm not addressing you personally, and don't know if you are one of these big government supporting assholes, but it you are; go fuck yourself.

  19. Re:If you like your lying Democrat by thunderclap · · Score: 1

    Democrats have NEVER supported the middle class. Please don't vote for the 'asses' again. Vote for something else. And please vote.