Buddhist temple in Borobudur, Central Java
© AFP/File Jewel Samad

London, May 16 (ANI): Computer scientists and cultural heritage researchers have reportedly come up with a new initiative that could enhance modern-day understanding of what life was like in bygone eras.

According to researchers from Warwick Manufacturing Group and the new Warwick Digital Laboratory, University of Warwick, the new initiative aims to depict more accurately and realistically how heritage sites may have looked in their heyday.

Using sophisticated three-dimensional computer technology, the researchers say they have been able to significantly reproduce improved visual reconstructions of churches, palaces and other ancient sites.

They claim that this could help historians, students and museum visitors gain a much better feel about life as it existed in the past, and what it was actually like to be there.

In particular, the effects of smoke, dust, fog and interior lighting conditions, all of which would have impacted on buildings of yore, can now be modeled very accurately, for the first time.

The new developments in display technology also mean it is possible to produce images that are more realistic than previously achievable.

The Warwick team is the first to examine whether they can be combined with the most up-to-date literary and archaeological evidence.

"We're trying to produce images that show more realistically the actual conditions of the time we're looking back at," says Professor Alan Chalmers, the leader of the project.

"The future might see the combining of extremely accurate, high-fidelity 3-d representations with temperature, smell, sound and other parameters," Chalmers adds.

The project is being funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). (ANI)