Seeing monuments in their original light
An interesting piece looking at new software which shows how ancient buildings would have looked when illuminated by their original lighting, which has applications throughout many areas of archaeology.
The software maps lighting details onto virtual recreations of places The project, developed at Warwick University in the West Midlands, brings ancient architectural features to life through a revolutionary sophisticated modelling of light. This allows archaeologists to study how buildings and artwork would have really looked at the time, right down to the differing lighting provided by the types of candles used.
"What you need to do to get an accurate image is model exactly the physics of the light - what colour the light source is, how it moves within the environment, and how it reflects and refracts off all the different surfaces," said Alan Chalmers, professor of visualisation at the Warwick digital laboratory. "Once you've modelled the physics right, you're modelling closer to what nature does - and you're achieving a realistic, physically-based image, and you can use that as a tool to understand what the environment really was like." . . .
But while such efforts may appear only of interest to a select group of archaeologists, Professor Chalmers insisted they have relevance to ordinary people too. "I think people are always interested in the past - if they go to Rome or Pompeii and see the frescoes, they think, 'what did this look like in Roman times?'," he said.
See the above page for details.
- Technology To Throw New Light On Ancient Artifacts
Science Daily New technology which makes it possible to study the finer details of some of the world's greatest historical artifacts has been developed by computer scientists and archaeologists at the University of Southampton in conjunction with...
- Shining A Light On The Past
The Economist Not specific to Egyptology but may well be of use here as elsewhere. Having spent part of an afternoon under a black-out sheet with a carved rock, a fellow archaeologist and a high powered torch each to try and work out the patterns carved...
- Cairo Tower Embraces Efficient Lighting
Engineering News One of Egypt’s most famous landmarks, the Cairo Tower, has been given a new night-time look, owing to an energy-efficient lighting scheme created by colour-changing light emitting diode (LED) technology. The LED lighting technology,...
- Le 70 Million Investments For Sound, Light Shows In Upper Egypt
Egypt State Information Service The Chairman of Sound and Light Company affiliated to the Ministry of Investment said that the company has decided for the first time to implement two projects of sound and light in Edfu Temple in Aswan, and in Abidos...
- Yale Professor Illuminates The Importance Of Icons
Art Daily This is basically an advert for a forthcoming lecture by Dr. Robert S. Nelson entitled The Light of Icons at St. Catherine’s Monastery, Mt. Sinai, Egypt, to be held at the Cleveland Museum of Art. As lectures are so specific to a single place...