José Juan Sanjosé Blasco

The teaching astronomical observatory of the University of Lisbon (19th century): A virtual experience

The last teaching observatory of historical interest in Portugal, from the late 19th century, is one of the most charismatic buildings of the Museums of the University of Lisbon. After 100 years of intense use, the Observatory needs structural restoration before it can be fully returned to public fruition. Recently, a group of students from this University was engaged in the construction of virtual 3D models to recreate the Observatory building and collections. This paper describes the models constructed as a tool to be used for information dissemination among broader audiences.

Virtual Recreation of the Monroy Roman Villa (Extremadura - Spain)

Recreation by means of virtual network environments facilitates the study, analysis and dissemination of information about our cultural and historical heritage. In the Geomatic Engineering and Urban Heritage Research Group (IGPU) of the University of Extremadura, a virtual recreation of the excavated part of the Monroy Roman villa was made by the following process: (1) historical study and preliminary documentation to define the villa; (2) Collection of current information through a topographical survey of the villa grounds; (3) Generation in ArchiCAD of the volumes of the building; (4) Generation of textures in 3DStudio Max and Photoshop to define the buildings, the furniture and the surroundings of the villa; (5) Generation of a virtual tour video using Adobe Premiere and 3DStudio Max; and (6) Generation of a virtual visit controlled by the user, by means of panoramic flash images, using the software Tourweaver. In this way and with a relatively low cost, we have been able to generate an interactive virtual network environment for the study of the conditions of life in a Roman agricultural villa of the fourth century A.D.