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Blog update I - Planning and inspiration

How would one want to proceed, when planning to recreate a historical site in a 1:1 realistic scale?

Using good, accurate measurements and somehow implementing them into Minecraft in an easy, quick way is how I proceeded.

Topography and road layout

I used a topographical map and a map showing the road overlay, laid them on top of each other and applied them as a background layer for use in WorldPainter. Ted O'Neill posted an article about Pompeii in which he uploaded two very neat maps: One of the elevation (topography) and one showing all the roads (source: https://www.archaeoreporter.com/en/2021/01/08/crossroads-and-fountains-the-not-secret-life-of-pompeii-two-researches-throw-light-on-the-archaeology-of-everyday-life/).

Morphing the topographic map and the road layout map on top of each other yielded a good result, even had a scale on the bottom left which came in handy later.

WorldPainter

Next up, the above picture was uploaded to a WorldPainter project and scaled using the scale on the buttom left, each 100 meter mark corresponding with 100 blocks in Minecraft. Then, I matched the topographic features of real world Pompeii to a Minecraft world and used brushes to brush on the road layout of the entire city. In less than 3 hours, I had created a base map to build Pompeii.

The finished product looked like this:



Inspiration and layouts of the city blocks

The official Pompeii website, http://pompeiisites.org/en/, has some great map layouts and a ton of information, which came in handy for planning out the individual blocks. Pompeii can be roughly divided into 9 regions (districts) which all have their own POI's. To get more detailed layouts of each insula (city block between the roads), I used the map created by the Pompeii Bibliography and Mapping Project (PBMP). It has a built in reference scale and you can see each individual wall, pillar etc., and measure out the exact dimension of each building. Very handy!



Wrap up

With the map and road layout done and the tools needed for planning out and building, the rest of the city could be constructed. Huge thanks to Ted O'Neill, the official PompeiiSites and the people behind the PBMP - this would not be possible without the work done by them. Also a special in memoriam to all the archaeologists and historians that have worked to uncover the secrets of Pompeii over the last few hundred years - truly amazing work!

I hope to one day finish this project to let everyone walk around the city of Pompeii and experience it in 3D!