Digital Documentation and Reconstruction of an Ancient Maya Temple and Prototype of Internet GIS Database of Maya Architectur

FAIN: HD-50975-10

Regents of the University of New Mexico (Albuquerque, NM 87131-0001)
Jennifer F. von Schwerin (Project Director: October 2009 to August 2011)

This project brings together an international team of archeologists, technologists, and cultural heritage site managers to develop a test implementation of a new online platform for virtual environments of significant cultural sites, using the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Copan, Honduras as a testbed.

This is a request for Level II Start-Up funding for an international project to develop and test a working prototype for a new platform for an online, searchable database that can bring together GIS maps, 3D models, and virtual environments for teaching and research. (The planning phase was funded by a Level I Start-Up Grant in 2009.) The prototype will employ existing digital collections on Maya architecture at the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Copan, Honduras and a highly-accurate, hybrid 3D model being developed by the project that will test and demonstrate the platform's capabilities. Art historians and archaeologists from the University of New Mexico (UNM) and the Honduran Institute of Anthropology and History will work with computer experts from ETH Zurich, FBK Trento, and the University of California to design this online tool.