Explore Hampi virtually from home

BENGALURU : Legend has it that gold and diamonds were sold by the roadside in the 16th century Vijaynagar. You will soon be able to have a first-hand feel of how the marketplace thrived in the kingdom’s capital of Hampi, thanks to a project by the Union department of science and technology to digitize the art, architecture and cultural legacy of the world heritage site.
The project under the Indian Digital Heritage (IDH) initiative seeks to blend technology with history and culture for digitally documenting and interpreting heritage. The department is unveiling Digital Hampi on November 18 in New Delhi.
Simply put, log on to the web portal www.digitalhampi.in and go to the menu comprising the landmarks of Hampi. If you click on the Bazaar Street of Hampi, you will enter the 3-D recreation of the marketplace of the medieval kingdom. The virtual marketplace People of those times, the cultural practices, the language of the people spoken in the market around you.
Kinect technology has been deployed to enable the tourists to digitally explore the place. All that the digital tourist has to do is to move his hands to turn left or right or walk close or away from objects of the virtual marketplace.
The other major attractions of Hampi like Girija Kalyana, the murals that adorn the ceilings of Rangamantapa in front of the Virupaksha temple and Vittala temple are also being digitized.
If you click on Girija Kalyana, you will be taken to the the 3-D recreation of the Rangamantap that hosts the murals of the wedding of Shiva and Parvathi. You will also be introduced to the history and literature behind the architectural magnificence. There is also a video of the wedding of the gods that is still practised as a ritual in a Hampi temple.
The Vitthala temple pillars which give away the seven musical notes when tapped is also recreated in 3-D images. And, yes, you can strike the pillars to hear the notes but only that your computers should have the Haptec device. Visually challenged digital tourists can get a touch and feel of the temple’s pillars.
A mobile app that will help tourists visiting find more on the treasures is also on the anvil. All you need is to point your mobile phone’s camera at the landmark to get its history and significance.
Professor Santunu Chaudhary, IIT-Delhi and project in-charge IDH, told TOI: “This is for the first time that government is trying to put technology and humanities together for social good. The technology used is generic and Hampi is a unique case that would have helped us illustrate the technology used to create virtual world around a heritage place.”
Sixteen institutes including IIT Delhi, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore (NIAS), National Institute of Design, Bangalore, Kannada University Hampi, Karnataka State Council for Science and Technology, International Institute for Art Culture and Democracy Bangalore, Art, Resource and Teaching Trust Bangalore (ART), Crafts Council of Karnataka (CCK), BVB College of Engineering and Technology, Hubli have been roped in for the Rs 8-crore Indian Digital Heritage (IDH) project.