Client – The Portus Project/Professor Simon Keay/University of Southampton
Funding – AHRC
Partners – British School at Rome/Parco Archeologico di Ostia Antica
CGI/Content– Grant Cox (ArtasMedia/CloudTour)
Software – 3DS Max/Vray/After Effects/Photoshop
Portus was the maritime port of Imperial Rome, and for c. 500 years was the commercial hub that connected the Metropolis to the broader Mediterranean. It was a very large complex covering c. 3.5km2 and which encompassed c. 230.5 Ha of harbour basins and quays, as well as canals, warehouses, temples, churches, houses and administrative buildings.
Since 2011 we have been working in collaboration with the project to reconstruct archaeological periods of the site, from its Claudian origins to its Late Antique phases. Working closely with specialists from the project, individual buildings were directly modeled from primary excavation and survey data and were then discussed with team members at the British School at Rome on an annual basis. As work continued and the archive grew, multi period site wide visualisations were also developed.
These models now form a large repository of digital data that can be used for a wide variety of purposes, many of which will be detailed in the coming months/years as research is published and released. As a resource it continues to be updated and refined as new information is uncovered from within the project.
These 10k resolution rendered murals were created to sit alongside the Portus Tour (for more information) and work in tandem with a series of illustrated maps that were created to highlight the layout of the site across the multiple periods.
You can find the breakdown for this project here.
