Virtual Cities – Winchester

Virtual Cities – Winchester is a new concept in development. The proposal will be to reconstruct, initially Winchester, over specific time slices of architectural change in the city. The aim would then be to recreate similar Virtual City portals for historic cities within the UK and internationally should the first portal prove to be successful for ‘virtual’ visitors and eco-tourism.

The basis of navigation over time will be similar to the Beaulieu and Dunster heritage site interpretations in that you will be able to stand in one space and view the same space in different eras (time-slices). There will be specific characters who will be able to narrate/guide you on your tour around the city in each of the different periods of time.

Each city will be built in Unreal and therefore there will be the ability to export to various platform technology and devices. An Unreal scene will be built for each time-slice. A library of 3D generic assets will be developed to place in each scene for each city, with city specific libraries also developed.

This work is proposed to be developed primarily be through the Centre of Enterprise, Design and Innovation’s Digital Heritage Unit, University of Winchester, working with experts across the University’s different Faculties and Departments to ensure an acceptable level of authenticity.

The initial time-slices for Winchester City was to be Anglo-Saxon and Medieval as stated in the attached document below, athough this may change to initially be Medieval and Jane Austen time-slices to provide significant changes in the growth of the city.

An initial gallery of reference images can be found on this link: