Simulating Life in Ancient Sites Using Mixed Reality Technology

More and more we can see several ancient sites simulated with 3D technologies. The presented case studies will illustrate the virtual reconstruction methodology and techniques we applied for the virtual restitution of historical sites such as Pompeii in Italy, using AR, or the Great Mosque of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul (using VR). But what is more interesting today is to mix some real scenery with virtual scenery. In the case of Pompeii, we have simulated life including humans, animals and plants together with the existing remaining building. This requires filming the natural decor and augmenting it at the right place with virtual humans. For doing that, we had also to analyze the costumes and the hairstyles, the behavior and the interaction between people living at that particular time. In our presentation, we will describe our real-time virtual human’s platform that allows us to see Pompeii augmented and to walk through the theater Aspendos in Turkey, seeing in the same time people that use to live there or be at these places. We will explain the methods used to simulate real-time clothes, hair and animation of the virtual humans. We also describe the rendering method that should consider the real light and the calculated light and visual case studies are shown.