an interactive virtual environment to communicate vesuvius eruptions numerical simulations and pompeii history
This paper describes a visual analysis and communication system that allows to interact with numerical simulations modeling complex natural phenomena, as volcanic eruptions, within their landscape environment. Moreover it describes how to effectively valorize the cultural context related to the territory using virtual archaeological reconstructions or historical sources whenever available having in mind educational and communication purposes.The case study presented is related to the area of the volcano Vesuvius, close to Naples Italy, very well known for the eruption occurred in 79 a.D. The volcano is currently being monitored to face future eruption risks.The framework presented not only allows to integrate the results of computing intensive simulations with geographic datasets for a fully interactive 3D high-resolution navigation around the volcano but also to performs an interactive virtual environment to access cultural heritage data.The goal is to perform new kinds of interaction and create user-friendly interfaces to communicate and explain scientific phenomena as the impact of the eruption together with cultural data providing access to databases and meta-information that exist beyond the landscape itself as GIS data, historical sources and virtual archaeology reconstructions.Moreover the framework that performs the interactive virtual environment is designed paying attention to multiplatform and multi channel portability. The interaction within the Vesuvius' landscape can be conceived not only for immersive graphics devices as Virtual Theaters but also for Virtual Sets for TV programs making contents fully available for educational purposes.
interactive virtual environments numerical simulation cultural heritage open source scientific visualization