Hi-fidelity history
There’s Hollywood’s reconstruction of the past and there’s an archaeologist’s. Computer experts at Warwick University are using the latest 3D software and digital display technology to recreate historical sites as they really were, rather than how we think they should have looked.

The team from Warwick Manufacturing Group and the new Warwick Digital Laboratory is led by Professor Alan Chalmers. He says, ‘It's about applying hi-fidelity computer graphics and modern lighting simulation, because lighting dictates what you can see and how the lighting influences the environment. Computer reconstructions traditionally don't incorporate accurate lighting.’

‘There-reality’
New techniques allow the archaeologist to move a candle around a space digitally without having to wait several days for the result. The realism of their work is enhanced by an innovative digital display technology from Canadian company BrightSide, which renders images ten times brighter and ten times darker than existing visual displays.

Professor Chalmers continues, ‘We call it “there-reality”. We want to give the same perceptual impression as if you were there. Computer models have previously either been an artistic interpretation, using fake graphics which you get in a computer game, or they’re computed to the nth degree with physical details the human eye can't see anyway.’

True colours
The team is completing a feasibility study at the Byzantine Museum and Art Galleries in Cyprus. The use of gold in Byzantine churches, and its interplay with natural light, candlelight and architectural features, created visual effects in religious paintings and mosaics that profoundly affected worshippers.

The procedure involves photographing artefacts using a green card to establish the object’s colour under neutral light, then re-lighting it with the effects of its original context. Lost or new information can be added in digitally.

‘For example,’ explains Chalmers, ’we’ve done some work with the Pompeii frescoes. The Romans burned olive oil mixed with salt. But if you measure the spectral property of the light, putting salt in any fuel source gives you a spike in yellow in the colour aura. Roman frescoes have a lot of reds and yellows in them. The hypothesis is that the light they were using to look at them meant they could see red and yellow very well.’ Digital technology has enabled Chalmers and his team to develop an ‘archaeology of light’ that gives us a true window on the past.