5/11/05 -
Two new papers, one describing
the entire project at a high level,
and the other describing
new fragment matches we have found.
Overview of the project
The Forma Urbis Romae, also known as the Severan Marble Plan, is a giant marble
map of ancient Rome. Measuring 60 feet wide by 45 feet high and dating to the
reign of Septimius Severus (circa 200 A.D.), it is probably the single most
important document on ancient Roman topography. Unfortunately, the map lies in
fragments - 1,186 of them, and these fragments cover only a fraction of the
original map surface. Piecing this jigsaw puzzle together has been one of the
great unsolved problems of classical archaeology.
The fragments of the Forma Urbis present many clues to the would-be puzzle
solver: the pattern of surface incisions, the 2D (and 3D) shapes of the border
surfaces, the thickness and physical characteristics of the fragments, the
direction of marble veining, matches to excavations in the modern city, and so
on. Unfortunately, finding new fits among the fragments is difficult because
they are large, heavy, and numerous. We believe that the best hope for piecing
the map together lies in using computer shape matching algorithms to
search for matches among the fractured side surfaces of the fragments. In
order to test this idea, we need 3D geometric models of every fragment of the
map. To obtain this data, during June of 1999 a team of faculty and students
from Stanford University spent a month in Rome digitizing the shape and surface
appearance of every known fragment of the map using laser scanners and digital
color cameras. Our raw data consists of 8 billion polygons and 6 thousand
color images, occupying 40 gigabytes.
The goals of the Digital Forma Urbis Romae Project are threefold: to assemble
our raw range and color data into a set of 3D (polygon mesh) models and
high-resolution (mosaiced) photographs - one for each of the 1,186 fragments of
the map, to develop new shape matching algorithms that are suitable for finding
fits between 3D models whose surfaces are defined by polygon meshes, and to use
these algorithms to try solving the puzzle of the Forma Urbis Romae. Whether
or not we succeed in solving the puzzle, one of the tangible results of this
project will be a web-accessible relational database giving descriptions and
bibliographic information about each fragment and including links to our 3D
models and photographs.
This project is sponsored by the
National Science Foundation
under the name
Solving the Puzzle of the Forma Urbis Romae.
Some of the early work was
funded under an NSF
Digital Libraries Initiative
pilot grant called
Creating Digital Archives of 3D Artworks.
Other early funding came from Stanford University, Interval Research
Corporation, the Paul G. Allen Foundation for the Arts, the Mellon Foundation,
the City of Rome, and Pierluigi Zappacosta.
Current status of the project
As of June 2005, we have assembled 3D models for all of the fragments,
representing about 8 billion polygons, we have built a database giving scholars
full access to these models, and we have created a separate database that gives
the general public viewing access to the models. Click here for a description
of (and access to) these two databases.
Unfortunately, due to slight miscalibration of one of our laser scanners in
Italy, we have high-resolution (0.25 mm) models for only about 800 of these
fragments. For the remaining 400, we have a high-resolution model of the top
(incised) surface and a low-resolution model (1-2 mm) of the full fragment.
Although we no longer have funding to improve these models, we welcome
proposals from any research group or institution that wishes to help us with
this task. Since scanning large objects at high resolution will always yield
datasets with slight calibration errors, developing principled methods for
overcoming these errors would be worthwhile research, and good solutions
would undoubtedly be publishable.
In addition, we have found about 20-40 matches between fragments of the map
(depending on how many you believe). These matches are described in this paper, to appear in Bullettino Della
Commissione Archeologica Comunale di Roma in 2005. A description of the
first match we found - in the Circus Maximus - is included in the second photographic essay below.
People
- Computer Science Department - technical team
- James Davis
< jedavis@graphics.stanford.edu >
- Natasha Gelfand
< ngelfand@stanford.edu >
- Prof. Leo Guibas
< guibas@cs.stanford.edu >
-
Leslie Ikemoto
< leslie@cs.stanford.edu >
- David Koller
< dk@graphics.stanford.edu >
- Prof. Marc Levoy
-
Austen McDonald
< austenmc@cs.stanford.edu >
- Nicolas Scapel
< nscapel@leland.Stanford.EDU >
- Rene Patnode
< rene.patnode@stanford.edu >
- Francois-Marie Lefevere
< francois-marie.lefevere@m4x.org >
- Computer Science Department - production team
- Samantha Chui
- Kevin Coletta
- Tricia Lee
< trlee@stanford.edu >
- Min Liu
- Robert Williamson
- Classics Department
- Margaret Butler
- Elizabeth Clevenger
- Jacob Denmark
- John Mandsager
- Andrew Martin
- Dr. Tina Najbjerg
< najbjerg@alumni.princeton.edu >
- Marden Nichols
- Gini Shinn
- Matthew Shulman
- Lilla Toal
- Prof. Jennifer Trimble
< trimble@stanford.edu >
-
Sovraintendenza Beni Culturali, Comune di Roma
- Dott.ssa Claudia Cecamore
- Prof. Eugenio La Rocca
- Dott.ssa Susanna Le Pera
- Musei Capitolini
< info.museicapitolini@comune.roma.it >
- Dott.ssa Anna Somella
- Dott.ssa Laura Ferrea
< l.ferrea@comune.roma.it >
Recent papers about the project:
-
Fragments of the City: Stanford's Digital Forma Urbis Romae Project
-
David Koller,
Jennifer Trimble, Tina Najbjerg,
Natasha Gelfand,
Marc Levoy
-
Proc. Third Williams Symposium on Classical Architecture,
Journal of Roman Archaeology Suppl. 61, 2006.
-
Computer-aided Reconstruction and New Matches in the Forma Urbis Romae
-
David Koller and
Marc Levoy
-
Proc. Formae Urbis Romae - Nuove Scoperte,
Bullettino Della Commissione Archeologica Comunale di Roma,
2005.
-
Protected Interactive 3D Graphics Via Remote Rendering
-
David Koller,
Michael Turitzin,
Marc Levoy,
Marco Tarini,
Giuseppe Croccia,
Paolo Cignoni,
Roberto Scopigno
-
Proc. SIGGRAPH 2004.
- This is a paper about the ScanView
system. We use this sytem in our public fragment database.
A shortened version of this paper was the
cover article in the June 2005 issue of CACM.
Other available information
- Our online web-browsable
database of the map fragments.
- A brief technical paper
summarizing the project (Siggraph Digital Campfire)
(superceded by the Williams Symposium paper, see above).
- An
alternative web site about this
project, created by our collaborators in the Stanford Classics
Department. That site is quickly becoming richer in information than
this one, and it also allows more ways of accessing our sample database
(see below). Eventually, these two sites will be merged.
- A web site summarizing the
Digital Michelangelo Project,
of which digitizing the Forma Urbis Romae was a part
- The
scanalyze software package used
to align and merge range data in the
Digital Michelangelo Project.
- A paper by James Davis, Steven Marschner, Matt Garr, and Marc Levoy on
filling holes in complex meshes
(such as our 3D models of the Forma Urbis Romae fragments)
using volumetric diffusion
(Proc. 3DPVT '02).
The software itself, called
Volfill, is also available.
- A pair of papers
that describe improved algorithms for aligning polygon meshes. The
first is Geometrically Stable Sampling for the
ICP Algorithm, by Natasha Gelfand, Szymon Rusinkiewicz, and Marc
Levoy. The second is A Hierarchical Method
for Aligning Warped Meshes, by Leslie Ikemoto, Natasha Gelfand, and
Marc Levoy. Both papers appeared in Proc. 3DIM '03.
Publicity about the project
-
Wired magazine
(November, 1998)
-
Stanford Campus Report
(Wednesday, April 18, 2001)
-
San Jose Mercury News (April 18)
-
Science Update
(American Association for the Advancement of Science, June 29, 2001)
-
Newton (Italian science magazine, July)
-
Stanford Daily News (November 20, 2001)
- SIAM News (Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, June 2002)
-
Stanford Daily News (October 21, 2003)
-
Stanford Campus Report
(April 19, 2004) and
video interview
-
BBC News Online (April 28)
- CBC Radio's As It Happens (April 29)
-
San Jose Mercury News (April 30), reprinted by
TwinCities.com (Minnesota),
SiliconValley.com,
Indianapolis Star,
Philadelphia Star, and elsewhere
-
Stanford Daily News (May 12)
- Stanford Scientific Review (Spring 2004)
- Wiedza i Zycie (Polish science magazine, September 2004)
-
New Scientist (October 2, 2004)
- La Repubblica, Il Venerdi (Italy, January 14, 2005), pages
1,
2.
-
Der Spiegel (German news magazine, January 2005)
-
Math Digest (May 2005)
- National Geographic (July)
-
BBC News Online (July 26)
- BBC Radio 4 (July 27) (.wav file, about 30 minutes)
- Illustrert Vitenskap (Norwegian science magazine, NR 14/2005)
- Archeological Odyssey (January/February 2006)
Photographic essays from the project
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Scanning the
Forma Urbis Romae
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23 newly discovered fragments
of the Forma Urbis Romae
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Carving and breaking the
Forma Aedificii Gatesensis
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Analyzing the fragments
of the FAG
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Includes pictures of
the first match we found!
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On a more personal note, here is a photographic essay by project co-director
Marc Levoy, narrating a week he spent on an archaeological dig in the Roman
Forum, getting down and dirty with the topography depicted on FUR fragment
#018a.
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Copyright © 1999-2004
Natasha Gelfand, David Koller, Marc Levoy
Last update:
March 27, 2015 05:27:34 PM