When all of the architectural components are complete, we will begin texture mapping of appropriate materials to various surfaces in the model and superimpose scanned images of wall reliefs and inscriptions onto the appropriate surfaces of the Giza monuments. We hope the analytical and educational potential of this database will eventually result in a superior product. For those who like technical details of computer hardware and software, the computer model has been constructed, since February 1997, on a Dell OptiPlex GXpro, 200MHz with 128 MB RAM, using AutoCAD Release 14. The entire database is approximately 35 MB and growing. The Map Series is a new electronic publication of the Computer Laboratory on the Institute's website.
All site maps are simple conic projections at the same scale and orientation.
The Map Series was produced from map projection, terrain relief, and cartographic data in the Mountain High Maps product, by Digital Wisdom, Inc., of Tappahannok, Virginia. A few minor glitches that appeared at the very beginning of its use were able to be fixed in the field because Jason Ur, a Mesopotamian archaeology student in the department who wrote the actual FoxPro source code for the database program, was in Egypt in January 1998 to excavate at Giza with Dr. Mark Lehner. He made a short visit to Chicago House and fixed most of the early problems with the program. To make a long story short, the staff continued to use the program throughout the season and discovered a few more problems, returning to Chicago in April 1998 with many requests to have this feature added and this feature changed in some small way. They did exactly what we asked them to do, and in one case they even exceeded our expectations.