During my freshman year I took Architecture 10A with Diane Favro. The course covered a lot of Greek and Roman architecture. I also distinctly remember pulling an all-nighter to complete an interactive Google Earth guide through Roman victory marches. The project took the viewer through the city of Rome on Google Earth past different landmarks. Movement though space is one of the most important ways we can understand architecture so to have a way to digitally interact with a space is very helpful. I think that Favro’s “Meaning in Motion” can be applied to another UCLA project is Digital Karnak (Favro is one of the directors of this project). Digital Karnak is a great exploration of the temple complex at Karnak. One of the things that makes this project so great and really distinguishes it from other 3D interactive projects of ancient spaces is that you can explore what the complex looked like through time. The timemap indicates what buildings were built, destroyed, or inactive during a certain period of time.
The experience Karnak tab includes information on how the space was used for different activities. Unfortunately the way we explore these spaces is only through 3D videos that don’t allow the viewer to freely explore the space. However, this isn’t a problem as these are supposed to be like “guided tours” through a specific place during a specific event. Fortunately this is supplemented by the Google Earth tab if you want to download the 3D model on Google Earth so you can freely explore the complex. Unlike the Digital Roman Forum The information is very easy to navigate and you don’t have to search for a specific thing in order to find information on it. There isn’t a search bar in Digital Karnak but you can use the “Browse archive” tab. I think that Digital Karnak exhibits the five operating principles set forth by the CVRLab which are to “follow the highest scientific standards”, “to conceptualize the models as ‘knowledge representations'”, “to include the surrounding environmental context”, “to utilize real-time visual simulation”, and “to promote access and utilization by other scholars”. A great part Digital Karnak is the “External Resources” tab for further exploration of the topic of Karnak specifically and Egyptology as a whole.