SPQR-ND for iPhone

SPQR-ND for iPhone started with the goal of providing access to plates from rare and antique archeological publications documenting monuments in the historic city center of Rome to Notre Dame Students studying abroad. It grew into a desire to combine historic methods of documentation and representation with mapping and mobile applications to provide a unique way to study the development of Rome. There is also a version optimized for the iPad called SPQR-ND.

The app allows students, scholars, and enthusiasts to study the monuments in the Roman Forum through early architectural publications on their iPhone. These rare and early publications have been fully digitized and broken apart virtually to allow one to study different interpretations of the monuments in the Forum side-by-side. The monuments are geo-located on a map allowing one to understand their physical placement within the Forum.

Features:

• Interactive map of the Roman Forum
• Photographic and digitized historic print representations of the monuments in the Roman Forum
• Browsable list of the monuments in the Forum
• Descriptive information on the monuments in the Forum
• Multiple historic representations of each monument
• Detailed, zoomable views of historic public plates
• Historical layered maps
• Bibliographic information

Future versions will include additional monuments, multiple languages, and a 3D viewer that will allow users to study high-quality scanned data stitched together to create a virtual monument.

SPQR-ND was created by a team from the University of Notre Dame interested in virtual representations of the built environment. The team is comprised of Hesburgh Libraries of Notre Dame’s Architecture Library, the School of Architecture’s Information Technology Team, and the Center for Digital Scholarship. Content in the app is prepared by School of Architecture students.