For almost as long as archaeologists have been using computers they have been exploited to render and visualise archaeological data. As computers have grown in power and graphical capability archaeologists have explored and exploited these new capabilities.
Recently, and under our very noses, a quiet revolution has been played out in the world of computer graphics as computer game software has led the way in exploiting the prodigious capabilities of modern computers; often game and hardware developments go hand in hand, and the complex, beautiful and fiercely interactive worlds of modern games showcase the pinnacle of what is possible using consumer grade computing hardware. So, what if we could harness the graphical capabilities of game software to visualise archaeological data, not just objects or structures, but entire landscapes? Such visualisations would have the added advantage of being both immersive and interactive (in the jargon of visualisation the user doesn’t just look at a two-dimensional graphic they are able to enter into and freely explore a fully three-dimensional world) and they would co-opt the familiar game paradigm, no need for users to learn complex software, if you can play FarCry (or whatever is the latest game) you can explore our virtual archaeological world.
Often our focus has been on visualising objects, their small size and discrete boundaries lent themselves to the relatively limited processing power of early computers, and sometimes down relatively dead ends (for example using VRML in the mid 1990s).
