In development since 2005, City & Spectacle: A Vision of Pre-Earthquake Lisbon is a virtual archaeology academic project that endeavours to give an idea on how the city of Lisbon looked like on November 1st, 1755, when an earthquake (followed by a tsunami and fires) completely destroyed it. Based on documental evidence — documents, paintings, engravings, maps and blueprints — a team of researchers at CHAIA worked with Beta Technologies to develop this project, the first one to allow immersion in this city of Lisbon that no longer exists.
Until recently, budget constraints limited access to the models to the team of researchers and Beta Technologies employees, which have been in development in a private OpenSimulator grid. Thanks to Kitely, the biggest commercial provider of OpenSim regions, hosting more than 2,500 regions (as of October 2012), virtual worlds can now be used as an affordable on-demand utility. Kitely’s unique cloud-based virtual worlds solution enables very-low-cost projects to be publicly accessible with high performance and extraordinary resilience. Kitely also provides the most user-friendly administration tools in the entire OpenSim hosting industry. Kitely has been used for training, education, collaboration, simulations, art exhibitions, machinima creation, theatrical performances, role playing, information centers, book promotions, 3D design, and entertainment activities. It was therefore the perfect choice for finally making this historic recreation project accessible to a wide audience.
You can access the current model at https://www.kitely.com/virtual-world/Jeff-Bush/Lisbon-1755. If this is your first visit to Kitely, OpenSimulator, or Second Life, a step-by-step approach will be given to download a compatible viewer, configure it, and log in to the world. We also have provided you with instructions in Portuguese.
After seven years of being restricted to a very small private audience, Beta Technologies is proud to be finally able to give a glimpse of this project to the public at large. We welcome you all to visit it!
Beta Technologies reserves the right to restrict access to the public exhibit at will.
