Past4Ward Licenses Exclusive Rights to Rome Reborn for K–12 Game-Based Education Platform, Video Games ; Game Play, 3D Historically Accurate Ancient City to Help Students Gain 21(st) Century Skills by Making Learning Fun
24 November 2008
Business Wire
Past4Ward, LLC, an Atlanta-based startup, has licensed the exclusive rights to use Rome Reborn, an interactive 3D model of the ancient, historic city, for the first module of its game-based supplemental education platform as well as video game applications, from Past Perfect Productions srl., a Rome, Italy-based company that reconstructs archaeological and historic sites from around the globe using scientific research and cutting edge virtual reality techniques.
Past4Ward plans to incorporate the Rome Reborn 3D model into an immersive product for middle and high school students featuring game play similar to a Massive Multiplayer Online (MMO) title as well as other Virtual World techniques that will be integral parts of the design, which will map to existing curriculum standards. Past4Ward plans to leverage its innovative approach to game-based learning across a number of ancient civilizations taught in K-12 schools to supplement textbook materials in the classroom environment.
Considered the largest virtual reconstruction, cultural heritage and digital archaeology project to date, Rome Reborn is an international collaboration of humanists and computer scientists inside several universities and technical companies. The model contains more than 7,000 buildings and covers more than 13 square miles using exacting scholarly research and the latest 3D modeling applications.
The Rome Reborn project was developed by a team at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), which contributed highly detailed 3D models of more than 30 sites in ancient Rome around 320 A.D., including the Colosseum, Circus Maximus, the Forum, the Pantheon and the surrounding buildings that make up the city. Over the last three years, the project has been further developed by Past Perfect Productions srl. in collaboration with the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities (IATH) at the University of Virginia, under Professor Bernard Frischer, project leader since 2004.
Collaborators on the Rome Reborn project have included UCLA, IATH, IBM, Illustrious, Mental Images, Procedural Inc., the Politecnico and Mersive Technologies. Each has contributed creative content with computer graphic technologies that combine to deliver an interactive experience.
In November, the Virtuality Group srl. (www.virtualitygroup.com), a partnership formed with Past Perfect Productions srl. and Parco Colosseo srl. (specialists in theatre and cinema entertainment in Italy), launched 3D Rewind Rome(TM), an interactive “edutainment” center 70 meters from the ruins of the Colosseum in Rome, based on the same Rome Reborn model. The experience will offer more than one million annual visitors the chance to travel back in time to 310 A.D. and take part in a historical adventure in ancient Rome. For more information, visit www.3drewind.com.
“We are extremely excited to be working with Past4Ward in providing the historical architecture that will become a new format to teach kids about ancient Rome,” Joel Myers, CEO, Past Perfect Productions srl., said. “A video game of this nature, used in classrooms, combines a stimulating and entertaining learning process with the strengths and familiarity of communications tools students use in their everyday lives, from PlayStations to the Internet.”
In addition to developing an in-classroom, game-based learning platform, Past4Ward plans to solicit interest from commercial game publishers and developers who are interested in creating entertainment products from the Rome Reborn 3D model.
About Past Perfect Productions
Based in Rome, Italy, Past Perfect Productions srl. reconstructs and manages archaeological and historical sites from around the world using scientific research and cutting-edge virtual reality techniques, producing 3D real-time content, film clips and animations with CGI characters that breathe life back into the scenes, with strict collaboration with leading archaeologists, historians, costume designers and magical storytellers.
About Past4Ward
Past4Ward, LLC is an Atlanta-based start-up that is developing an immersive learning platform that will provide middle and high school teachers with new ways to interest, excite and educate students through single- and multi-player interactive, 3D environments that include game play. Past4Ward owns the exclusive video game rights to the Rome Reborn 3D model and plans to make the license available to game publishers and developers for commercial online game development. For more information, visit www.past4ward.com.