Old Media Becomes New Media
David Rumsey has digitized 17,000 historical maps. You can now walk around them in Second Life, as well as cross-reference and remix them. The 3D build comes courtesy of the geniuses over at Centric, but it’s Rumsey that deserves credit for having a vision to do something truly remarkable. He’s taken a huge collection of historical documents and found ways to remix them, mash them up, warp them and find new meaning.
Below is a full presentation entitled “Giving Maps A Second Life With Digital Technologies”, showing how one can leverage virtual world technology to make fragile and fascinating things accessible in ways that nobody ever would have imagined before.
Giving Maps A Second Life With Digital Technologies - David Rumsey
If the above video does not play for you, click here.
This is one of those presentations that just gets more fascinating with every turn. Most certainly worth a half-hour of your time.
If you’d like to find out more about the Second Life installation, Jenn tells me she’s posting about it over at SL Things To Do. They recently upgraded the website and added several features - do check that blog out if you want to do something interesting today.
