Virtual Williamsburg

Virtual Williamsburg is an ongoing initiative to create a 3D computer model of Virginia’s capital in 1776 as the backdrop for key events leading to the American Revolution as well as at other important periods in the town’s history. Reconstructing Williamsburg virtually will involve modeling a range of buildings, from standing eighteenth-century structures to archaeological sites with no above-ground remains, as well as recreating the ravine-filled topography which has been smoothed out over time. The project, which began in 2006 with a one-year pilot project funded by a generous grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, is being done in collaboration with the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities (IATH) at the University of Virginia.

As part of the one-year pilot project a virtual model of the Douglass Theater, a playhouse that stood near the capitol during the third quarter of the eighteenth century, was created. The computer model, whose design was based on intensive archaeological, architectural, and historical research, shows the building as it looked in the 1770s. Building the model involved producing a series of detailed two-dimensional line drawings for all important parts of the structure. The computer line drawings were then merged and manipulated to create a three-dimensional model. The addition of colors, textures, and lighting resulted in a photo-realistic model that provides the first glimpse of this lost building in more than 200 years.

The exterior and interior of the Douglass Theater as it looked in the early 1770s. Renderings, or highly detailed images of a virtual model, often resemble photographs. The Douglass Theater, however, was torn down in 1780 and is not part of Williamsburg’s reconstructed landscape today.