Page - (000001) - in Analogue Meets Digital - History and Present IT Augmentation of Europe’s Largest Landscape Relief Model in Villach, Austria

Multimodal Technologies and Interaction Article AnalogueMeetsDigital: HistoryandPresent IT AugmentationofEurope’sLargestLandscapeRelief Model inVillach,Austria ManfredF.Buchroithner Institute forCartography,DresdenUniversityofTechnology,01069Dresden,Germany; manfred.buchroithner@tu-dresden.de Received: 30April2019;Accepted: 12 June2019;Published: 20 June2019 Abstract: Broughttocompletionin1913afteraproductiontimeof24years, thelandscapereliefmodel ofCarinthia (Kärnten),ondisplay inVillach,Austria, is, at182m2, the largestof itskindinEurope. It ispaintedwithnature-like land-cover informationandpresents thewhole federalstateofCarinthia anditssurroundings includingAustria’shighestpeak,Großglockner,atascaleof1:10,000. From2016 to2018,aseriesofcomputer-generatedandpartlycomputer-animatededucationalcontents forrental tablets as well as for projection onto the terrain model and above it have been produced. Their topics are briefly presented. The described Relief von Kärnten is also a paramount example and master copyofhowto improvetheattractivityofhistoricalphysical landscapereliefmodelsbymeansof state-of-the-art informationtechnology. Thearticle is, furthermore,meant toraiseawareness fora piece of “geo-art”, which is worth being known at an international scale by both experts and laymen. Keywords: landscape relief model; true-3d; largest terrain model of Europe; history of landscape relief models; 3d terrain modelling and representation; digitally animated projection upon landscape reliefmodel;physical landscapereliefmodelsanditsaugmentation 1. Introduction Itmaybeconsideredastrangefact that the largest landscapereliefmodelof itskindinEurope is—evenintimesofarevivalof3Dvisualizations—almostunknownamongstprofessionals,not to mentionthe laymen. This isall themoresurprisingas thispieceofeducational“geo-art” is located in the center of Villach, a city in the southern Austrian Alps that is probably the most important traffic hub there with rail- and highway connections to Germany, the Region of Vienna, Hungary, theBalkans,andNorthernItaly. Thus,apart frombeinganexcellentmeansofgeographiceducation (andbeyond), it isalsoa tourismhighlight,anattractionforsightseeingparexcellence. Note that the aboveformulation“reliefmodelof itskind”refers to thedetailedscaleof1:10,000, themodellingof the alpinereliefwhichrepresentsaparticularchallengeto itsproducers, themeticulouspaintingand—last butnot least—theconsiderationof theearthcurvature. Thepresentpapertries,forthefirsttime,todescribethisthree-dimensionalcartographicmonument atascientificallysoundlevelandexplains thehistoryoforiginsaswellaspeculiaritiesof theRelief von Kärnten. Although the author has not been involved in the described IT-based augmentation with up-to-date digital information, he was, in a collaborative manner, encouraged by staff of the Municipal Museum and Archive of the City of Villach and the CEO of edufilm und medien Inc. to make the facts described in the present article known to both experts and the public. The majority ofhistory thereinhavebeenretrievedfromanarticleauthoredbyMatthiasdiGaspero,publishedin 1931 in a book by Erwin Stein (Ed.) with the title, Die Städte Deutschösterreichs. Eine Sammlung vonDarstellungenderdeutschösterreichischenStädteundihrerArbeit inWirtschaft,Finanzwesen, MultimodalTechnol. Interact.2019, 3, 44;doi:10.3390/mti3020044 www.mdpi.com/journal/mti