Biblical Places, 2015

Interactive 3D application for navigating in Biblical stories

Background

The Biblical Places interactive installation was created for a new biblical themed exhibition in Gönc, Hungary. The project’s aim is to showcase and tell three significant stories of the Bible: the Passion, the missionary travels of apostle Paul and Israel’s Exodus from Egypt.

We used maps to give visual feedback of the scenes or locations of the stories and paths as timeline for the narrative.

Each scene has three views or depths. The first scene is above the clouds where the initial story and map can be selected. By selecting a map, the second scene appears, the overview map of the story with the locations. The third depth is the view of an individual location with its story and a visual hint.

Technical setup

The visitors can browse through each story on a touchscreen interface. Technically we control virtual cameras to fly to various locations in a 3D world and use overlay content at each location.

Scenes

Each scene was created using maps and actual height data, the only exception being ancient Jerusalem which was built based on the physical model reference of the city, located in the present-time city. For the elevation of the area we used the relief map showing the original topography of Jerusalem.

Meshes in general were textured with a low and a higher resolution version depending on their importance and visibility.

Visual hints

For each scene, we took a specific moment or element and used it as an animation loop. These animations composited with slowly unfolding texts and the blurry environment lend a unique atmosphere to the locations.