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Pharaoh Ramesses VI Tomb
- jlengrand 6y agoStupid question but a serious one on my end : I would pay to get an actual guide to go through this and teach me, just like I did on travel. Would you? It seems like between the environment, Covid and the geopolitical situations in many places it could be a way to still feel like I can enjoy some of the priceless pieces the humans have created.
- mitchdoogle 6y agoThe Matterport platform seems to offer embedding of other content within the virtual space: https://matterport.com/blog/multimedia-mattertagtm-posts-embed-video-audio-and-more-your-3d-spaces https://matterport.com/blog/multimedia-mattertagtm-posts-emb...
- jlengrand 6y agoCheers! In my case the live experience does matter a lot though. Otherwise I could also watch a documentary in HR for example. I'd like someone to make me live the place
- technotony 6y agoLast year High Fidelity took one of these tombs and built a VR version that they had an Egyptologist doing tours in. Was pretty cool, sad that they closed the platform.
- jlengrand 6y agoOh my that sounds exactly like what I mean. Someone that would carry me through the magic of the place live :). I'll have a look if I can find some resources about it thanks!
- ipsum2 6y agoNational Geographic has a VR app that does something similar: https://venturebeat.com/2019/11/10/machu-picchu-is-coming-to-oculus-quests-national-geographic-explore-app/ https://venturebeat.com/2019/11/10/machu-picchu-is-coming-to... Also Anne Frank's House, recreated in 3d with some documentary: https://www.oculus.com/experiences/go/1596151970428159/?locale=en_US https://www.oculus.com/experiences/go/1596151970428159/?loca...
- staycoolboy 6y agoThat's just bonkers. So much writing on the walls! I wish the navigation was a little more like a FPS and less like Myst III, but I had to keep reminding myself: this isn't some level designer from 2000's, this is an actual tomb designer vision from 5000 years ago. Just bizarre. I wonder what it would look like illuminated by torchlight.
- the_af 6y agoI wonder why it isn't more like an FPS. I understand there's more modelling work involved, but it would totally rock. Imagine if advanced engines like Unreal were put to work for this kind of things instead of just for games.
- redisman 6y agoLooks like its missing geometry. I don't see why you couldn't model the whole tomb but I don't think matterport supports that.
- mrlala 6y agoDoesn't the overhead view look like it's all in a 3d model basically?
- redisman 6y agoIt does but in the first person view it looks like it's doing the Google Streetview thing where you have waypoints of 360-degree camera shots mapped onto the 3D model rather than one generated solid 3D model. I'm guessing it's because the texture mapping would be tricky to get at high resolution but still work on most machines or something like that.
- signal11 6y agoAssassins Creed have done this for Egypt and Greece — a “no fighting” educational sandbox you can explore or get guided tours[1]. It can be bought independently on PC and is quite cheap[2] — it was being given away for free recently. [1] https://youtu.be/_yMDdQKfv70 https://youtu.be/_yMDdQKfv70 [2] https://store.ubi.com/uk/bundle-discovery-tour-by-assassin-s-creed/5d6e8bd25cdf9a3ab80a059e.html https://store.ubi.com/uk/bundle-discovery-tour-by-assassin-s...
- EndXA 6y agoThe buttons on the bottom left corner of the screen also allow you to explore options such as changing the view type and selecting different floors.
- illuminated 6y agoEarlier discussion on the same topic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23042207 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23042207
- rkagerer 6y agoThe first comment there is a great list of other virtual tours. Anyone have a list of these that work with VR (as in, with a Vive or Rift on your head).
- caiobegotti 6y agoIt's truly impressive and jaw dropping but what's maddening to me is that what you see in there is exactly how it is in real life, i.e. the walkways are just like that and people can actually reach out and touch the walls. At least based on my visits to Luxor, very few tombs have acrylic/glass wall protections to prevent it but it's ridiculously common to see tourists in some of the tombs doing that, it's sad and revolting as hell despite such great beauty hypnotizing you.
- gadders 6y agoYou'd be surprised how many "closed to tourists" tombs you can get into with a local guide and a few notes changing hands as well (or it was easy 15+ years ago).
- caiobegotti 6y agoI'm afraid it's still that easy these days.
- EricDeb 6y agoWas there last year.. most tour/tomb guards expected to be tipped and the more you wanted to take pictures (technically not allowed in most places) the more you tipped.
- cmdshiftf4 6y ago>At least based on my visits to Luxor, very few tombs have acrylic/glass wall protections to prevent it but it's ridiculously common to see tourists in some of the tombs doing that I understand the sentiment, however I'm personally not in favour of modelling everything in society to account for the lowest common denominator and sterilizing everything in sight in response. The issues you mention are nothing that couldn't be solved by advertising hefty fines and enforcing them.
- throwaway_pdp09 6y agoYou're still proposing to deal with the lowest common denominator, only in a different way.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 6y agoThat was the first time I thought I may not need to visit a place in person ( not an expert; seeing it in person would be unlilely to yield a different reaction / insights ). Maybe virtual tourism could be a thing for sites like these.
- stfurkan 6y agoI have also posted this to the earlier discussion on the same topic. I am writing the same comment here too :) If you are interested, I am trying to build an open source database for places with virtual tour. Website: https://gez.la https://gez.la I am currently working on this alone. Anyone interested is welcome to help :) https://github.com/stfurkan/gez https://github.com/stfurkan/gez
- justwalt 6y agoImagine how cool it would be if links to these virtual tours were linked from maps. Like street view on steroids.
- dmos62 6y agoReally cool. Seems fully functional. What would you like help with?
- aaronheid 6y agogez.la is a great name for a virtual tour website :)
- andybak 6y agoYou might find some interested people on the UK Museum Computer Group mailing list: https://www.museumscomputergroup.org.uk/join/mcg-community-discussion-list/ https://www.museumscomputergroup.org.uk/join/mcg-community-d...
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- gorkish 6y agoWhile I really respect the need to preserve these places as-is, I can't help but wonder if these AR/VR/virtual presence platforms could be a great way to give us a view into how these places may have looked when they were original and all the walls were freshly carved and painted. This coupled with the future potential for being able to offer sythesized lightfields/holographic is ridiculously appealing to me.
- MRosenthal 6y agoWell... Google streetview blurred lot's of houses due to request by citizens. But what happened here? https://my.matterport.com/show/?m=NeiMEZa9d93 https://my.matterport.com/show/?m=NeiMEZa9d93
- MRosenthal 6y agoSorry, the link did not work as expected. You have to look straight up to see the blurred section.
- pkaye 6y agoMight be a blind spot in the panoramic camera.
- antcas 6y agoThere's a blind spot if you look straight down as well. Still really really cool.
- sexy_seedbox 6y agoMatterport cameras cannot shoot the zenith and nadir.
- noncoml 6y ago"Remember me!"
- indosauros 6y agoIs there a version of this that is annotated? For example a few steps in are some niches on the wall -- I half expected a popup explaining their purpose
- praveen9920 6y agoFirst thought I had is, it is so beautiful, the lighting was perfect. I didn't expect the details of texture, glyphs and color from few thousand year old tomb. Pharaoh himself would be surprised to see his tomb like this.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- programmertote 6y agoThere are lots and lots of hieroglyph written on these walls. I'm assuming that the researchers have deciphered what those means (Rosetta Stone)? I really wish I could read what these means in English. That would really give a great insights about what people (maybe the pharaohs and/or rich people who can afford to build tombs like that) during that time thought was important/noteworthy.
- mseepgood 6y ago> I really wish I could read what these means in English. You can buy them on Amazon. Search for "pyramid texts", "book of the dead", etc.
- karatestomp 6y agoLichtheim edited a 3-volume "Ancient Egyptian Literature" which contains a lot of funerary inscriptions. I'd second wl's post above: if you don't have tolerance for really dull writing, avoid. Almost all of that "genre" is of the "seen one, seem them all" variety. Most of it's very formulaic—think nicene creed or traditional church hymns, but less interesting. There were a bunch of standard texts that were reproduced on many tombs, and as time went on this body of necessary texts grew, so that's very likely what a lot of this is. Sometimes you'd get some passages of history but those are usually about as dry as the tombs themselves. More often those are on monuments, not buried in tombs, anyway. "Mirrors for princes" (instruction texts for rulers, often both moral and practical in nature), scribal training texts (yes, really), and their few actual stories that survive, are all way more interesting than the stuff inscribed in tombs, in general. A lot of those don't survive in hieroglyphs, though, but in hieratic or demotic script.
- wl 6y agoAs someone who has a decent grasp of Middle Egyptian hieroglyphs, I think your enthusiasm for these texts would be destroyed by reading them. I know from experience that the quickest way to bore someone I'm guiding through an Egyptian exhibit is to start reading and translating inscriptions. The context for much of what is written is more impenetrable than the language itself. You pick up a lot of that context by necessity in learning the language but it doesn't come through in translation.
- kdamica 6y agoThis is so cool and a great use of the technology. Despite the fixed camera, the scene feels textured and alive. I'd love it if there was a way to overlay translations of the hieroglyphics so I could get a sense of what they chose to write about here.
- acidburnNSA 6y agoI was impressed by this when it was posted a bit ago and am still impressed. What's funny is that right after seeing this, my neighbors were selling their house. I checked out the listing and they had this same technology for a COVID-19 walkthrough linked right on the redfin page. They got two offers within a week. Pretty shcmancy!
- mesozoic 6y agoThis is really cool! It would be awesome if there was an automatic way to export something like this to a map you can load in some high res FPS like half life 2 or a newer one.
- FigmentEngine 6y agoYou should see his Emacs Tomb...
- einpoklum 6y agoIf you turn around immediately, you'll notice the ancient Egyptian mailbox next to the metal gate... and you can now write Ramesses a nice personal letter: "I know what you're going through - I too often feel like I'm buried under a ton of bricks." etc.
- tbabej 6y agoMiddle button to zoom. It is worth it to have a closer look at those walls with millenia-old artwork.
- qqj 6y agoSeeing it like this kills all mystic notions I had regarding these tombs. And I don't mean this in a negative way, it sort of opens your eyes to what this thing actually is - a conglomeration, made by many artists and engineers, pouring their hearts and souls into building something to last a millennia. Truly beautiful. That is until you remember it was all in service of some rich guy who thought he was a god, and had them build this as a monument to his supposed might. Ironically, his existence was entirely inconsequential, and merely provided an excuse for the true geniuses of the time to tunnel their talents into a magnum opus. They, together, were the true gods. Only true ideals transcend time, and any individual thinking himself a god would be wise to acknowledge that; you can become a god only if you let youself die and embody an ideal fully. Ramesses missed the point so hard it's hilarious.
- dmos62 6y agoI'm not an expert in any way, but aren't you jumping to conclusions (or rather, we, collectively) about what the builders were like, what their worldview was, etc? We don't even know when the pyramids were built, or how. There's a lot of writtings and drawings and other archaelogical treasures left behind; but still, are we at a point where we can say we understand the building, builders and their world? Maybe it's just the inner child in me that wants these things to remain a mystery forever...
- thechao 6y agoActually, "we" have a fairly good idea when the 115-140-or-so Pyramids were built. We also know a great deal about their construction — the engineers who built them couldn't help but bragging about it. What we don't know is the precise method for moving the blocks up the pyramid. The problem is that Herodotus claims that the ancients hadn't invented cranes, yet, so the pyramids (he's probably discussing the pyramids at Giza) had to have been constructed via a ramp. A damning piece of counterevidence to Herodotus' claim is that the shadoof predates the pyramids, so it's not too far fetched to imagine they might have had some piece of equipment like this. What's missing is a definitive historical statement; remember, historians require written evidence. Most of our evidence for the building of the pyramids is archeological. The sorts of building devices needed for the pyramids would've been generally useful for all construction — so they wouldn't have been left to rot at the pyramid build site, but repurposed until destruction.
- pierrebai 6y agoWas impressed, until I got to the very end, were you see multiple depictions of people being beheaded. (With blood fountains from their neck.) You then remember that pharaohs were not gentle people.
- adelHBN 6y agoThis was the coolest thing I've ever seen. I shared it with my Egyptian relatives, and they loved it. Thank you so much for posting this.
- seanbsamson 6y agoWow! This is by far the best thing I've seen this year. Excellent work! Thank you
- trm42 6y agoHa, it's awesome how much further we have gotten from the times of Quicktime VR! So much of details and clarity.
- rkagerer 6y agoIncredible :-). Though I can't help but feel those wooden light-boxes take away from the grandness of it. They look like something hammered together by a weekend hobbyist.
- n_o_u 6y agoI love digital explorations like this, but the step length of these google maps style walkthroughs drive me insane. I often want to look at the detail of something that happens to be in between two steps, and it's just not possible.
- monadic2 6y agoI can’t be the only person who finds this kind of presentation hard to navigate on a phone. It’s also why I go to my desktop to use google street view.... ideally it would degrade to something more approachable with swiping gestures and/or visual clues to controls. Nonetheless, this is extremely cool (no knock on this specific project for the above problems) and I’m looking forward to poking around tonight.
- robotresearcher 6y agoBeautiful and fascinating site. The artifacts of the capture and rendering process strike me as deeply weird - they do funny things to my brain as I navigate around. I've done some photogrammetry so I understand why they exist - they have chosen to never show the holes in the mesh - but I've never seen exactly this aesthetic effect. Maybe someone could use this as a video effect like Radiohead did for lidar point clouds a tech generation ago. https://youtu.be/8nTFjVm9sTQ https://youtu.be/8nTFjVm9sTQ (2008)
- fortran77 6y agoDoes he have an emacs tomb?
- noisy_boy 6y agoI wonder if the motif of the eagle with its wings spread originated from around this time. In case you miss it, look up at the doorways to the levels; truly beautiful work there and very well preserved (probably due to it being out of normal reach).
- Abishek_Muthian 6y agoThis is awesome. I would like an option to toggle 'How it looked like when it was constructed' which shows rendered image of the historical architecture in its pristine condition[1]. Like, Pyramid's white limestone finish. [1]https://needgap.com/problems/55-how-ancient-architectures-looked-like-via-vr-architecture-vr https://needgap.com/problems/55-how-ancient-architectures-lo...
- Jaruzel 6y agoThere's more 3D places built with Matterport at: https://go.matterport.com/destinations.html https://go.matterport.com/destinations.html
- lihaciudaniel 6y agoThese drawing make them look like Gigantic people, don't hate me but I think they are the one who built the pyramids
- edeion 6y agoThis is a duplicate from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23042207 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23042207 The top comment there has many interesting links to other monuments that have been similarly captured.
- gd1 6y agoReally don't think we should be glorifying slave owners in $(currentYear)