Recreating the past using Object Oriented Virtual Reality for Ayutthaya World Heritage Historical Park: A case study of Wat Ratchaburana
Abstract An application software is introduced in this research to manipulate the historical information, recreate and visualize the cultural heritage. The application consists of three modules, the first for displaying and viewing a historical object by using virtual reality concept. The user accessed with WWW browser and walked around the historical place in the virtual environment. The second module is a geographical information system (GIS), which was applied to manipulate historical information such as history, creator, and age. These two modules can be worked in the Internet and linked together with hyperlinks and active server pages (ASP) in the WWW system. The last module applied the object-oriented virtual reality as the following: convert raster to vector, digitize object model to database, encapsulate the model to object classes, select the corresponding model by archeologist, map the selected model to original image and recreate a panorama image or VRML.
The security restriction is provided in the system, which allows only authorized person to manipulate databases and virtual reality information.
This application helps archeologist to centralize database, predicts the cultural heritage after recreation and provides history information for interested people. It also used to promote historical information for introducing Thailand and travelling purpose.
1. Introduction
Ayutthaya was the Thai capital for the period of the 14
th to 18
th century. The ancient capital was attacked and destroyed by Burmese in 2310 B.E, however some ruins of Buddha temples and pagodas still remain. In these times, Ayutthaya was a trade center in Asia with many traders from Europe, China and Japan. Ayutthaya has been included in the UNESCO list of World Heritage since 1991. As Ayutthaya was completely destroyed, no documents remained. Therefore it is worthwhile for the research to recreate the past. Wat Ratchaburana established by Chao Sam Phraya in 1967 B.E. The layout of the temple follows the early Ayutthaya. After more than 200 years of desolation, a gang of thieves excavated the treasure rooms under the main prang and stole invaluable treasures. Some of the stolen treasures are now displayed at Chao Sam Praya National Museum. Therefore, this temple is very interesting for tourists and people who are trying to discover the past.
Wat Ratchaburana has a prang as its principle chedi, together with a vihan and a ubosoth lying to the east and to west, respectively. This is a typical layout plan of the wat or Buddhist temple in the early Ayuthhaya period. There are chedi rais or small satellite chedis in the temple compound. The chedi rai refers to any type of small chedi, erected as a subsidiary of the principle chedi, the ubosoth or the vihan.
This study is focused in the reconstruction of chedi, vihan and ubosoth in the Ayutthaya period by the computer. All characteristics of them are collected by object oriented technique, which is easier to maintain and reusable. This information will help archaeologists to select the most suitable model of the interested objects. The selected model is mapped into the original image and then converted into three dimensions image by the Virtual Reality technique.
2. Background
2.1 Object Oriented (OO) modeling is based on information hiding. An object or class, which hidden states and operations on that state, is independent. The object is appropriate reusable components and can inherit to other objects. The object is an entity, which has attributes and a set of operations. An inheritance hierarchy or tree is created when a class can inherit attributed from a single object or class (called super-class) to sub-class.
2.2 Virtual reality (VR) is a technique, which specify dynamic 3D scenes. Users can navigate or interact with these 3D objects. The virtual reality modeling language (VRML) is a computer language, which can be interpreted by the Web browser to operate 3D graphics.
In the research, VR and OO are together applied to model the historical objects such as pagodas, temples or churches.
3. Virtual Reality
This is the first part of the research for displaying and viewing a historical object by using virtual reality concept. The user accessed with WWW browser and walked around the historical place in the virtual environment with navigator.
Figure 1. Virtual Reality of Main Prang
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Figure 2. Virtual Reality of Wat Ratchaburana
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