Throughout the history of archaeology, record keeping of archaeological investigations has been paramount. This includes lists of artifacts, maps of locations of sites and positions of artifacts within sites. Documentation often included static images that were either drawn, photographed, or both but seldom has any attempt been made to bring the data to life until the computer age made this possible through virtual reality renderings. The development of Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) has enabled archaeologists to convert two-dimensional digital elevation models of sites using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) type data into three-dimensional, full color, photo-realistic models that can be interactively explored.
This has become a powerful tool in both visualizing and understanding archaeological data and as an educational source for both aspiring students and the general public. Several projects have been undertaken that have used standard modeling, rendering and animation techniques to re-create complex and richly detailed archaeological sites as they may have appeared in the past. Many of these use programs that involve the application of constructive solid geometry modeling techniques for the reconstruction of prehistoric architecture. Other types of models can be derived by using additional data from sources such as Global Positioning Systems (GPS), Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR), and Remote Imaging Techniques such as aerial and satellite imaging in a variety of wavelengths for specific results. The computer aided enhancement, analysis and graphic rendering of archaeological data can lead to insights which are otherwise unavailable by the use of conventional methodologies.
Virtual archaeology uses Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) to model creative visual representations of archaeological data into virtual images that can be examined and explored using a personal computer's browser. A VRML document is a human readable text file that describes a three-dimensional scene in terms of a list of commands that tell the computer how to place visual elements upon the monitor screen. This is accomplished via a list of computer commands that direct the computer to assemble objects of given shapes, sizes and colors at precise locations within a virtual world framework.
Simple objects are constructed out of what are known as primitives. Primitives are simple geometric shape files stored in a ready-made fashion for combination with the colors and sizes specified. This serves to keep the file size under control and simplifies the file overall. More complex shapes such as landscapes, complex buildings or highly specific morphological features are made through the use of more basic building blocks called polygons. Polygons are used to build up the desired forms from tiny elements. Typically, many thousands of these elements are required to achieve realism in a complex frame such as a landscape. Of course these files are much larger and slower loading. The files can be distributed to other computers over the internet or via standard file transfer protocols and can then be parsed by typical browser programs which render the document into an interactive form. The browsing is done on the client machine to keep bandwidth requirements low and is viewable by either Mac, Windows or Unix based equipment.