CHArt CHArt Computers and the History of Art - 1999 Conference Paper Abstract
This paper attempts an overview of the contribution which emerging technologies - viz. CAD, Multimedia, Virtual Reality and the Internet - can make to the presentation, understanding and preservation of the rich architectural heritage which exists (pro-term) in almost every cultural context.
In the UK, the growing interest in sites such as Stonehenge has, through the threat of greater physical presence, increasingly kept the public at bay - a curious paradox which Virtual Reality (VR) has the potential to address.
This paper focusses on that category of Virtual Reality that provides a convincing experience of environments which existed in the past and which are now threatened or already lost, i.e. what is now becoming known as Virtual Heritage (VH). It draws largely on thee work of ABACUS, The architectural and Building Aids Computer Unit, Strathclyde.
The paper concludes with conjectures based on the examples given of how emerging information technologies can help secure a future for the past.