Blip.048: Digitally Reconstructing Florence

See the city as it was in the 15th century.

While I was still an Art Director at Universal Studios, I took my first international vacation to Florence, Italy. I had never left the country before and since the studio had their own travel agency, I could book everything—flights and hotel—in one go. I booked a flight on Lufthansa to Pisa (Claudia Schiffer was on the flight, but she got off in Frankfurt), and a lovely little family-owned hotel that apparently was once the home of Rossini. I was there for a week by myself and had a marvelous time. The people were warm, the food was incredible, and the art and architecture were like nothing I had ever seen before.

A week or so ago, my friend who works at the National Gallery forwarded me a video from a colleague named Dr. George Bent, who is working on a fascinating project in Florence. He’s collaborating with Leica to use 3D laser scanning to digitally reconstruct Florence in 3D as it would have been in the 15th century. Once the spaces have been scanned, Dr. Bent's team removes modern objects and inserts photogrammetry models of original Renaissance artwork and historically accurate everyday objects into the digital models to give viewers an idea of what the spaces would have looked like 600 years ago.

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