Bringing history to life

Historian Richard Beacham is using cutting-edge 3D virtual models of archaeological sites to bring history to life. The Warwick University 3D Visualisation unit led by Professor Beacham is at the forefront of research, but there are concerns about ensuring rigorous standards.

"There is a serious danger with virtual reality images. They have a bogus persuasiveness and are increasingly interpreted as reality.

But every picture is a hypothesis or a guess based on a number of evidence sources," Professor Beacham explained.

"Evidence can vary from a few ancient descriptions through to buildings where there is extensive archaeological evidence and textual descriptions from history. Academics want to know if what we are doing is reasoned judgement or complete crap."

Beacham's project aims to uncover the process by which decisions have been made in real initiatives.

"We will develop software to record para-data, which are data that enable the decision-making process to be followed," he said. "By consulting with the few prominent practitioners in the field, we will define a method to document the concrete evidence in all historic VR projects. Then you will be able to see what is known and what isn't, by, for example, using different colours in the model."

Professor Beacham's project is called Making Space: A Methodology for Tracking and Documenting 3D Visualisation-based Research .