"Immaginare Roma Antica" e "Il museo narrativo del parco archeologico dell'Appia Antica".

Between September and November 2005 a pioneer virtual archaeology exhibition, Building Virtual Rome, was organized at Trajan Markets in Rome by CNR ITABC, the Museum of Imperial For a, Luiss University, Federculture and Filas. In this important and attractive archaeological site in Rome a visiting path was conceived to host exclusively digital installations, videos, multimedia, different typologies of desktop VR systems (in stereoscopy, with aptic devices, artificial life VR environments) not directly connected with the surrounding archaeological artifacts but dealing with the general theme of ancient Rome, whose "vision" was virtually brought to life. At that stage, some technologies were still at the beginning of their evolution and were developed only at research level. This event was an occasion to present them to a wide audience and to observe the reaction. Visitors were interviewed at the beginning of their experience about their expectations; then they were observed and interviewed during the visit of each installation in order to undertand their approach, the interaction level, their understanding; finally they were asked to give their opinion at the end of the whole visiting path, about usability, attractiveness, involvement, learning. Within this exhibition a specific VR installation has been presented by ITABC: The Narrative Museum of the Appia Antica Archaeological Park. This project has been an extraordinary case study able to integrate different spatial technologies: remote sensing, laser scanning, mono and stereo photogrammetry, photomodelling, DGPS RTK (real time kinematic), GIS. Technologies used are turned towards two research directions : the first one is the topographic and architectural documentation of monuments for GIS and spatial archives, the second one is the creation of a virtual reality system dedicated to the narrative museum of the Appia antica. Scientific, geographical, antropological, cultural, narrative aspects are all together costitutive elements of the hystory of the archaeological landscape, they belong to its memory.