DELUXE
TECH-TIME
Back to the future
H
ollywood has already given us a taste
of it, now this vision is becoming
reality. So long as you wear your 3-D
glasses! Last year Australian start-up
Lithodomos VR secured the seed funding to
enable them to promote to an international
market their concept of transporting people
into the past to experience a location as it
would have been. At the ITB travel trade
show in Berlin it showcased a boat ride on a
wooden junk, moored at the landing stage of
an ancient Greek harbour. As you stand on
the deck and listen the creaking of the mast in
the wind and feel the gentle rocking of the
waves, you are transported back to a time
beyond anything we can imagine. Just as
breathtaking is the archaeologically accurate
reconstruction of the city of Jerusalem as it
would have looked 2,000 years ago. The
software can be used for digital tourism as
well as for educational programmes such as
history lessons, or simply as entertainment.
Lithodomos VR’s latest project is a collabo-
ration with the University of Córdoba in
southern Spain, which aims to bring to life the
historic region of Alto Guadiato. The town is
currently being reconstructed virtually to show
first how it would have looked during the
Roman era, and in a second version in the
Middle Ages. When it is finished we will be
able to see Castillo de Belmez in Cordoba,
of which just parts of the keep and the forti-
fications with their round towers remain
today, in a new light. Imagine putting on your
3-D headset after a short climb up the hill and
experiencing the landscape and fortress as
they would have been in 300 BC. On the
way you are passed by a legion of Roman
soldiers. Then at the press of a button you are
standing in front of the same castle when it
was rebuilt in the Middle Ages. At the gate
you see knights of the Order of Calatrava on
their way to a tournament. In a few years
these VR experiences will without doubt also
be available for historic buildings in
Mallor