PID roman Aosta

Ultramundum Foundation, in collaboration with Regione Autonoma Valle d’Aosta, has produced the prototype of the virtual model of the city of Aosta in roman age.

The title of the project is: Aosta Augusta Praetoria, the name the city had in first century after Christ.

This product allows for interactive free exploration of a first model of the roman city of Aosta on a standard personal computer. The age is that described by the historian Strabone, of the first century after Christ. The city had been just founded in the place where Varrone had his headquarters.

The reconstructed area covers the surroundings of the city, the walls and the internal insulae (blocks). The walls ring was 730 meters by 560, with twelve towers, an area of 42 hectars was inside, divided in 64 blocks. The model, completely produced with the Foundation technolgy, can be downloaded in a very short time from the Internet.

The development of such a large area has requested a surprisingly short time and few hours of work. Thanks to the UltraPeg technology model elements will be publicly available.

Walls, towers, the access doors and the amphiteather have been modeled with volumetric precision. The internal buildings are created by an automatic details generator. So, streets have precise dimensions while the insulae (blocks and houses) are generated by heuristic algorithms. In the next project phase isulae will be generated with an high correspondance with the archaeological evidences.

The technique used for the insulae clearly shows the possibilities of the UltraPeg technology. Each Insula is produced by an algorithm, not by a human-crafted model. In this way, a large variety of structures can be produced automatically using standard elements.

A DVD has been produced, with the history of the foundation of Aosta Augusta Praetoria, as well as the "making of" of the digital project. Animated scenes with the city in various phases of its construction have been produced, as well as the principal events that allowed the legions of Aulo Terenzio Vallone to get the place form the Salassi tribe.

A large effort has been made for the historical researches. The city of Aosta holds many original elements and so many pictures have been taken to get the details of building techniques and surfaces. Many standard-technologies models and drawings available had ambiguities and contradictions, resolved with a direct visit to the ruins.

Tabulae produced for this prototype will be the base for the devlopment of more advanced models of the city of Aosta, creating a virtual platform usable for all kind of projects of antique roman projects.

Even the Coliseum in Rome is extremely similar to the Aosta Augusta Praetoria amphiteather, so it is possible to reuse many Tabulae in other antique roman creations. Ancient roman constructors used a standard and modular approach, so today it is easy to reuse Tabulae of any project in all others.

Without UltraPeg technology this product could never be made in the time and with the costs allowed by this new production method. Standard systems, then, would not allow for Internet download and would require a CD-Rom.

All the model is explorable in real-time on a standard PC with a 64Mb video card.

The Foundation can arrange interactive demonstrations on request, because this product can not be freely distributed yet.