Surfing the net can be a very time consuming business. One link leads to another and another where you spot something that you just have to click on. We’ve all been there. And before we know it, life’s passed you by!
Well, tonight’s clicking has lead to something that has definitely got that “WOW!” factor that more than makes up for previous fruitless clicking. After stumbling across Google’s channel on You Tube, I spotted this video. WARNING: after watching you will want to download!!
To take your time travelling trip to Ancient Rome, you’ll need to have the latest version of Google Earth installed (version 4.3) Once installed, you can activate the layer by clicking on “Ancient Rome 3D” which is located within the “Gallery” folder in the left hand panel of the Google Earth interface.
Once you’ve clicked on the Ancient Rome layer, you’ll need to fly to Rome (you probably could have worked that bit out!).
Once there, zoom in to just above street level and then you’ll see lots of yellow buildings begin to load. Click on any of them to bring up information about that building.
Near the bottom of the information box that then appears there are three download links. One is for a terrain layer. Download this one first, which masks the present day Rome, and then choose from the second and third download link how many buildings you want to see.
Be warned. You will need a fast internet connection AND a fast processor on your computer. It can take a while for the downloads to start happening and even longer for the buildings to be rendered on your machine. They recommend a system minimum of Dual-Core 2.0GHz CPU + 3 GB RAM + High End GPU with 512 MB RAM, in case you were wondering. To get the best from your Roman tour, Google also recommends you turn off the “3D Buildings” layer, after which should should be able to glide gracefully around the city.
Nevertheless, this is an amazing project. Not only is it very clever, intuative and brings the past to life (well, almost), it is exciting in the way it is using different sources of data to create something new.
December 18, 2008 at 3:15 pm |
That is amazing, and a great demonstration of the amazing volume of resources online!
Thanks for posting – our charity has a blog too, where we talk about our grants to schools, and ways to work with Home Access… If you’re interested see http://www.valeriethompson.wordpress.com Cheers!