The Virtual Egyptian Temple Jeffrey Jacobson, School of Information Sciences, University of Pittsburgh, USA, jeff@planetjeff.net Lynn Holden FiatLUX Studios, Toronto, CA lholden1@sprint.ca Abstract: At the center of every flourishing ancient Egyptian community, there was a sacred temple, the House of the Divinity. This Establishment (Sacred Corporation) was a model for the Egyptian world, containing all the knowledge, images and materials necessary for Harmony between Heaven and Earth. The Virtual Egyptian Temple embodies the key elements of a New Kingdom temple, useful for curricula in history, archeology, religion and culture. We are currently adding a lifelike companion agent, an Egyptian priest, who will follow the user, answer questions and make suggestions. The temple and all supporting materials are open-source and free to the public for any use (http://PublicVR.org/egypt/). Two versions are available: the VRML version (no priest) is lightweight and eloquent, while the Unreal Engine version is rich in detail and the focus of our current efforts. The latter is available in the Virtual Theater, a panoramic projection-based display based on the CaveUT software. Introduction We present the Virtual Egyptian Temple, a three-dimensional model which embodies the identifying and functional elements of a temple from the New Kingdom period. (Fig. 1) Like most other religious architecture, it is information rich, with complex spatial relationships that organize the symbolism and even the activities in the space. The temple exists in a small virtual world, which the user “visit” from a desktop (using VRML or the game, Unreal Tournament) or through an immersive display like the Virtual Theater (Fig. 2). Either interface allows the student to explore the temple, viewing it from the inside, allowing him to see relationships not otherwise emphasized or even shown. However, immersive displays are particularly effective, because the student can see the temple in life-size, with approximately the same view as if the temple were real. Immersion also conveys a sense of presence or “being there” in the virtual environment. Handled properly, this can be used to focus students’ attention on the subject matter. The temple is an example of Virtual Heritage (VH) which is the use virtual reality (VR) to create models or animations which represent, recreate and interpret cultural artifacts, such as the temple. This is an active area of research and development, with the same general advantages mentioned above. Limitations with VH include it low ability to represent uncertainty in virtual recreations of ancient artifacts and the question of how to represent an artifact with a long and dynamic history. Finally, a class of artifacts may be best described by an example, but any one member of that group will also unique features particular to it. The virtual temple avoids this problem by (theoretically) having no unique features, because it does not represent any real temple. The temple is based on Unreal Tournament, a partially open-source graphics-intensive computer game. It has considerable support for content creation and can be extensively reprogrammed. Students could modify the temple itself or add objects and animations to it or in it. Unreal Tournament also provides shared “play” over the internet, allowing users to occupy the same virtual world, seeing each other as animated humans or whatever they choose to represent themselves. This makes collaborative learning and distance learning designs possible. For example, we are working on an automated Egyptian “priest” (Fig. 1) a companion for the user who will answer questions and make suggestions.