Integrated Presentation System for 3d Models and Image Database for Byzantine Ruins

Gemiler Island is located in southwestern Turkey and is known as the “Island of St. Nicholas”. This saint was the origin of our present-day Santa Claus. The island itself is small and measures 1000 by 400 m but it still contains an entire medieval city with antiquated structures such as churches, houses and so on. According to the style of architecture and decoration of the churches, the city is thought to have been built during the early Byzantine era. We started the Digital Gemiler Island project that was aimed at recording the topography of the whole island as well as the historical sites scattered widely throughout it in the form of 3D models. During the first year of the project, we measured two churches in 3D jointly with the Research Group for Byzantine Lycia. To show the preliminary results, we have developed an integrated presentation system for the project. The system has pictures with captions as well as 3D models of the churches. Users can retrieve images from the image database of past excavations by pointing to an interesting part of the floor plan or elevation view of the buildings, while at the same time they can see and operate the 3D models.