UC Santa Cruz

Archaeologists, historians, and art historians are increasingly turning to three-dimensional computer modeling to create dynamic visualizations of ancient monuments and urban spaces, but the resulting 3-D content is not always accepted as scholarship and integrated into discipline-specific dialogue. In Digital Karnak: An Experiment in Publication and Peer Review of Interactive, Three-Dimensional Content, Elaine A. Sullivan and Lisa M. Snyder propose a reconceptualization of computer modeling as a new means and form of knowledge production, offer a framework for peer review and publication of 3-D content, and describe an experiment to develop an innovative publication with an interactive computer model at its core. The Digital Karnak model, a geotemporal model of an ancient Egyptian temple, is their case study, a 3-D publication package of which they posted for peer review. This article describes the model's creation, the software interface used for the publication prototype (VSim), and the ways in which this project addresses the challenges of publishing 3-D scholarly content.