The Acropolis of Athens reconstructed in 3D

This news is a little older but not less awesome because of it: the Archaeology News Network recently reported that Whiskytree, the 3D graphics company that has participated in many hollywood movies like 'The Hunger Games', and 'Captain America: The First Avenger', has recently presented the reconstruction of Acropolis in a two and a half-minute 3D video. And it is glorious!

According to the ANN, the Whiskytree group in collaboration with VFX company (the brains behind the impressive visual effects of the movie “Elysium,”) presented the video in the 40th SIGGRAPH Conference on Emerging Technologies. The two companies used a total of 1.62 billion “visible triangles” in order to achieve the final aesthetic result. Whiskytree comments on the project:

"Athens was an internal development project to improve our layout tools and see how much geometry we could push through our lighting pipeline (XSI / Arnold). The project had a 6 week schedule though we finished the project in 5 weeks. At the peak of asset creation we had 14 artists dedicated to the project during the first 3 weeks. Once assets and layouts where complete the crew scaled back to just a few people to finish the shot".

I am in love with this video; not only am I a Hellenist watching as one of the cornerstones of the ancient Hellenic civilization is reborn in all its glory, but I'm also a computer geek who greatly enjoys the 3D graphics side of computer science. Those little green trees and all the triangles might not to anything for anyone else, but that's pure perfection for me. Also, I don't think I can describe the level of longing this video summons in me: I want to live there so badly it hurts. Do yourself a favor and watch this on full screen at the highest quality setting; you will not regret it!