A Forum Z on history paintings, 3D reconstructions, virtual worlds and time machines.
Visualisation techniques can be used to interconnect large volumes of information as a means of tapping into new knowledge. When it comes to historical research, the value of these techniques depends on the quantity of historical information and digital data available and the user-friendly nature of the visualisation software.
At this Forum Z we will present various projects that are exploring ways of illustrating historical processes; we will discuss both the possibilities raised by the visualisation of history and the limits of such techniques. The showcased projects include historical paintings as historical sources, the reconstruction of the Pfaffenthal district of Luxembourg City in virtual space, the 3D reconstruction of a coastal battery in the First World War, and the Europe-wide Time Machine Project, in which computer scientists and historians are working together to develop a comprehensive digitised representation of historical sources.