History of the Project

Over the past several years, Professor Ahmet Cakmak, of Princeton University's Department of Civil Engineering and Operations Research has undertaken the structural analysis, under earthquake loads, of the Hagia Sophia. The Hagia Sophia is a major museum (formerly church and mosque in Istanbul, Turkey, built by the Emperor Justinian during the 6th century AD. Professor Cakmak has sought to determine the susceptibility of the structure, specifically its large dome and arches, to collapse due to the earthquakes that often strike that part of the world.

As an extension of that work into the architectural realm, he recently offered a class which studied Byzantine structures from a structural and art-historical perspective. One of the goals set forth in the class was for students to construct three-dimensional models of specific Byzantine structures utilizing the computer drafting software AutoCAD. This was the first step towards a long term goal of creating a full model of the topography of ancient Constantinople, with models of many Byzantine buildings in place.

Summer 1995

During the summer of 1996 four members of Princeton's class of 1996, David Thom, Susannah Hobbs, Jennifer Smith, and Sanjay Arwade, were enlisted to continue the project begun in Professor Cakmak's class. After a spending some time getting familiar with the various software to be used in the project (AutoCAD, 3dStudio, and Photoshop) we set about the task of turning the wire frame models built in AutoCAD into fully rendered 3dStudio models, complete with animated walkthroughs. The AutoCAD models first had to be broken down into upwards of 100 objects each in order to allow accurate material mapping. The files were then exported to 3dStudio where photographs taken of the buildings were applied to the models as texture mapped materials.

In addition to the modeling of the buildings, the topography of the peninsula of Constantinople was created from a topographical map of the area. The contour lines were digitized by tracing the contour lines from transparencies affixed to the computer screen. This seemingly primitive method was employed due to our lack of a digitizing tablet, and proved to be quite effective. A surface was generated in SoftDesk's DTM module, and then imported to 3dStudio, where a grass texture was applied and an ocean and sky were created.

If you are interested in more information about the logistics of the project, please take a look at a more detailed description of topography and building creation and rendering.

The Future

As of the end of July 1995, the landscape is complete, along with a photorealistic sky, ocean, and road network. Of the buildings, the monastery of Constantine Lips (Fenari isa Camii) has been fully mapped (with varying degrees of detail based on the limited photograph selection) and several other buildings are fully broken down and ready to receive texture mapping. Also, roughly 1/3 of the landward walls of the city have been placed on the landscape and fully mapped. Arwade, Hobbs, Smith, and Thom will continue their work on the project through the fall semester as part of Professor Cakmak's class which is being offered for the second and final time. After that, the future of the project will rest with the members of Princeton's classes of '97 and beyond. That future holds the promise of a landscape replete with Byzantine structures, as well as the conversion of AutoCAD wireframes to meshes suitable for static and dynamic structural analysis using either the LUSAS or SAP90 structural analysis packages. These future steps will bring the project to the point where it will be a valuable tool to engineers and art/architectural historians alike.