3D cartography as a platform for remindering important historical events: The example of the terezín memorial

Abstract

Creation of 3D web maps is rapidly developing field with increasing importance and huge impact on 3D cartography. It is dealing not only with perceiving of space and space-relations of objects in 3D environment (apart from traditional 2D cartography), but thanks to the approachability of data via Internet, also with accessibility of those 3D web maps for the general public. The Terezín city is a very important place of historical events of our culture, thus it is very important to commemorate these events even at present. This paper depicts issues connected with a creation of virtual 3D model of the Main Fortress and the Small Fortress of Terezín reflecting the state of the area in the period of the Second World War. The 3D model consists not only of buildings, but also of the fortification of the fortresses. This means, we are dealing with a huge amount of data and due to this amount, we are forced to use a hierarchy of the data for purposes of its visualization. The contribution focuses on a creation and 3D cartographic representation of buildings within the city and the fortification around the city together with the related challenges. Then the paper describes the workflow of deriving the shape of objects from plans and measurements and the creation of the particular model and its visualization in Google Earth platform. Further this contribution narrates about an enrichment of the model by attribute data via Content Management System (CMS) and publishing the model on the internet. This consists of creation of models of buildings and interesting places, assembling documents related to the important places and people living in Terezín during the Second World War and interconnecting these data (both geometric and attribute) together into CMS. The final stage is the visualization of the whole model with an ability to obtain data from CMS via clicking on interactive models and popping up a balloon with the information about the place, related documents, photographs and people. This paper stands as an example of 3D web cartography working with big hierarchical data.