REAL-TIME INTERACTIVE RECONSTRUCTION OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL LANDSCAPES: AN OPENSOURCE APPROACH FROM GIS TO VIRTUAL REALITY

The development of 3D real-time visualisation of geographical data (GIS and remotely sensed data) allows today the use of DVR (Desktop Virtual Reality) systems not only to communicate final results of scientific studies, but also for the process itself of analysis, interpretation and reconstruction of archaeological landscapes. The paper will be focused on a new approach based on OpenSource projects that, we believe, can produce positive results in the field of Cultural Heritage, and most of all of Virtual Heritage. Some testing cases will be discussed on the generation at different levels of detail (LOD) of territorial data, on the interaction with the archaeological landscape of the Appia Antica Park in Rome and on the publication of the three-dimensional landscape over the Web, based on OpenSceneGraph and Virtual Terrain Project