Parts of the world will become virtualized as time and people arise to tackle
them. If you are working on any particular location and are willing to
be listed here, please let us know!
reported in August 2008: "If you register (free), you can download the
3D app (uses ThreeX technology) to flyover
Italy, with DEM 20x20 and terraitaly ortomaps 1m/pixel. Unfortunately it
is slow, and not well cached, but there is a great detail, and i like the
flight simulation."
Website with an embedded interactive flyover of all of Italy, from company
called "GIS Solution"
Uses nicely cleaned-up public data for elevation, imagery, and point
locations for cities
Andrea Caporin explains: "The DEM data are SRTM data, interpolated to
cover the voids and resampled to about 250m to improve the visualization
speed. The textures are obtained by LandSat ETM+ scenes (PAN+TM),
with final resolution of 15 m. I worked very much with Global Mapper
and then with Photoshop."
Built on the Blaxxun VRML control which unfortunately means that it
is Windows and IE only, and must do paging in a very blocky, chunky fashion
(huge pops)
Navigation is smooth and easy, although very constrained (fixed elevation,
no pitch) which is probably appropriate for novice visitors
3DCarto distributes
"for all Italian territory, Orthophoto, Aerials and DTM" ready for use in their
software
Il Lupo sells 2D/3D map software which
appears to do some realtime terrain rendering
a contact: Charles Macmillan (charlesmacmillan@hotmail.com),
looking at large datasets of northern Italy and of Austria, combining DEMs with
satellite imagery
A nifty web utility (in Italian) for browsing to any part of Italy in
a 2D map browser, then converting that area of the terrain to a VRML output
file. I found it easy to use, although of course suffering from the
drawbacks of VRML (file size, syntax errors reported, difficult navigation,
etc.)
An interactive 3D viewer of the province, on DVD, comissioned and
distributed by the government of the province, which shows the beauty
and natural features of that part of Italy.
Marche Region, Chienti River:
Geologia 3D della Bassa Val di Chienti, "Plastico digitale interattivo
con la geologia affiorante e del substrato della Bassa Val di Chienti"
by Antinori Alberto, 2013, academic work using the VTP software
DTM, orthophoto, geological outcropping formations, , and substrate
as a TIN!
The Ultramundum project has modelled
some places in Italy
However, all the projects say "The Foundation can
arrange interactive demonstrations on request, because this product can
not be freely distributed yet."
A very early alpha version of their software is available from their
download page.
Apparently these are part of a much larger, more ambitious project called
4DGea,
which says "Any place on Earth will be explorable and it will be possible
to visit it not only in three dimensions but in any period of the past...
4DGea will became the greatest work ever done by mankind, a four-dimensional
book whose pages will contain everything we know of our history, everything
of our science, everything of our culture, everything about our endless
adventure."
An long-term project (1997-2007) by teams at the University of Virginia,
UCLA and Politecnico di Milano, to create a 3D model of the ancient city
of Rome. The notional date of the model is 320 AD. The primary
purpose of the model was to present information and theories about how the
city looked at that moment in time, roughly the peak of its development
as the capital of the Roman Empire.
A free Windows application which gives a flyover of the island of Sardinia,
similar to a simplified Google Earth.
Actually, compared to GE, the elevation is more accurate, but the imagery
worse, the paging is slower, and there are no cities or other culture.
Here are side-by-side images showing the same place (on the island of
Tavolara) in Sardegna3D vs. GE:
I don't read Italian so i'm not certain what the purpose of this software
is; it doesn't seem to have any culture or to be open for any use besides
flyover.
The city of Magnago (in Milano Province) was modeled by
tecnolution as "Magnago
Virtuale", an experiment of urban simulation on a small/medium scale, created
in conjunction with the city center renovation project. Interestingly,
they provide several different ways to view the model:
VRML, built on the Cortona VRML Client
panning over a large pre-rendered 3D view, using Flash
panning around in pre-rendered panoramic views, using Flash
rendered video of walking around the model, using Flash
Rome model with interactive features: view points; switching among different
landscapes; uploading of 3d models, vegetation, vectors, labels; fast tool-tip
visualization; 3d link to multimedia contents.
Developed by VHLab of CNR ITABC (Virtual
Heritage Lab) in cooperation with CINECA (Visit Lab)
teams: a group of ICT and GIS experts, archaeologists, art historians and
architects devoted to VR applications dedicated to Virtual Heritage.
CNR is the National Council of Researches, CINECA is a supercomputing
center.
Viewable in a web page, using the open-source OSG4WEB plugin.