I am a Web Applications Developer for the University of Virginia Library that takes classes in the Classical Art and Archaeology department part time; my academic focus is on Roman history and architecture. I like to apply my technical skills to my field of academic interest, which has resulted in two tracks of projects--one digitizing the UVA art museum's collection of Roman coins (http://coins.lib.virginia.edu) and another in 3d reconstructions of Roman archaeological sites. The former I presented on at Computer Applications in Archaeology in March. The latter I would like to discuss at THATCamp--or broadly, advanced visualization techniques and bridging the gap from 3d models as illustrations to 3d models as academic research tools.

I have worked on 3d modeling projects before, most notably IATH's Rome Reborn. Many people only see 3d visualization as a bells and whistles type of presentation, with no real academic applications. Recently, I developed a reconstruction of the House of the Faun in Pompeii. Doing sophisticated light simulation, I calibrated "sunlight" to the precise coordinates of the house using Google Earth and used a script that can set the light angle to precisely any minute in time back to 2000 B.C. (in this case, 100 B.C.). As a result, I learned the famous mosaic of Alexander the Great within the house was almost always in the shade, which can have broad implications in the study of art history. I am continuing the same sort of study with the mosaics in another house near Antioch. Since many works of art have been removed and placed in museums, 3d models help archaeologists contextualize the artwork and simulate how the ancients themselves saw them.