The Power of Transformation.

Abstract

Adam Clulow remembers his first introduction to virtual reality in high school, back in VR’s original clunky days, when the technology just was not there yet. Crude lo-fi polygons morphing around in space did not do it for him, so he often dreamed of the day when technology would enable teachers to transport students back to ancient times and make history much more fun to learn. “I thought one day we’re going to be there in a world, when, myself as a history professor or a history teacher, in 30 years time, is going to be able to put students in the Pyramids, or in Angkor in the 13th century,” Clulow said. Now that such technologies exist, and thanks to Clulow and his years-long collaborator Tom Chandler, their Virtual Angkor project (see cover image and Figures 1, 2, and 3) recreates the sprawling Cambodian metropolis of Angkor Wat several hundred years ago. Clulow writes books and teaches Asian history at the University of Texas at Austin while Chandler sets up shop at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, where he lectures in the Faculty of IT and coordinates the faculty’s Interactive Media major. Together, Clulow and Chandler discuss the details of Virtual Angkor in this issue’s Art on Graphics section.