Dassault Systèmes and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), announce a strategic partnership to enable real-time virtual reconstruction of the Giza plateau based on actual archeological data.

Giza Archives Project: one of the world’s largest Egyptology databases

The Giza Archives Project is a digital initiative, housed at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), for research on the Egyptian Pyramids and surrounding tombs at the Giza Plateau. In the last decade, it has digitized historic expedition photographs, excavation diaries and field notebooks, maps, plans and sketches from the ancient tombs and pyramids at Giza. The result is the largest database and web site ever assembled relating to the Giza Plateau. Most of the archaeological documents and photographs had been assembled over forty years of excavation by Egyptologist George Reisner (1867–1942), one of the prominent founding fathers of modern scientific archaeology, who led the Harvard University-Boston Museum of Fine Arts Expedition in Egypt. In a unique international collaboration, the Giza Archives Project partners today with all of the world's institutions that house major collections related to Giza.

3D lifelike experience technologies at the heart of education and research

Dassault Systèmes brings to the Giza Archives Project its real-time 3D expertise and a complete suite of solutions for simulation and visualization of archeological data, creating fully immersive interactive experiences for both specialists and the general public. Dassault Systèmes and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, will imagine new forms of multi-platform experiences, whether individual or collective, through Internet devices or through more complex virtual and augmented reality systems, using game consoles, 3D screens or even movie theaters willing to create new kinds of archeological immersive interactions.

This partnership will enable real-time virtual reconstruction of the Giza Plateau based on actual archaeological data. The collaboration between technology and archaeology will result in new forms of scientific inquiry and communication. Virtual archaeology, using the power of scientific simulation tools and 3D immersive experiences, raises new questions, offers new hypotheses and allows us to simulate them in virtual environments.