PRESENTING CULTURAL HERITAGE LANDSCAPES – FROM GIS VIA 3D MODELS TO INTERACTIVE PRESENTATION FRAMEWORKS

Abstract

Two current projects of the authors try to approach cultural heritage landscapes from both cultural sciences and geography through a combination of customised geo-information (GIS) and visualisation/presentation technology. In excess of a mere academic use, easyto- handle virtual 3D web presentations may contribute to knowledge, esteem, commemoration and preservation. The examples relate to pre-historic Scythian burial sites in the South-Siberian Altay Mountains ("Uch Enmek") as well as to a "virtual memorial" of contemporary history ("GEPAM"), a chapter of Jewish prosecution in the "Third Reich", which historically connects the town of Dresden with the Czech Terezin (Theresienstadt). It is common knowledge that a profound understanding of (pre-)historic artefacts and places may reflect a larger environment as well as an individual geographic setting. Coming from this background, the presented projects try to find technical solutions. They start from GIS models and aim at customised interactive presentations of 3D models. In using the latter a widely-spanned public is invited to a land- or townscape of specific cultural importance. The geographic space is thought to work as a door to a repository of educational exhibits under the umbrella of a web application. Within this concept a landscape/townscape also accounts for the time dimension in different scales (time of construction/operation versus actual state, and in sense of a season and time of the day as a principal modulator of visual perception of space).