Using Palmtop Computers and Immersive Virtual Reality for Cooperative archaeological analysis: the Appian Way case study

This paper aims to describe a prototypal immersive virtual reality application, running in a Virtual Theater, that uses portable terminals to visualize multimedia data and to manage the interaction with 3D models regarding the survey and restoration of eight tombs along the ancient Rome’s Appian Way. The starting point of our work is a 3D Web application where the user, interacting with VRML models of the tombs, can access to archaeological data: the baseline conditions before restoration, the various phases of restoration work and the final outcome [4]. A Virtual Theater Technology enables the users to experience a more realistic fruition of the 3D models of the tombs and the use of portable terminals greatly increases the possibilities of interaction in virtual environments, maintaining also the capability to access via Internet all the multimedia archaeological data developed for the previous web application. Moreover the application is designed in order to enable peer-to-peer collaboration among users who can share data and interactions during their virtual experience.