Fantastic reconstructions or reconstructions of the fantastic? Tracking and presenting ambiguity, alternatives, and documentation in virtual worlds

Abstract This paper considers the presence of ambiguity, evidence, and alternatives in virtual reconstructions of ancient, historic, and other no-longer-existing environments. Because the foundation of these reconstructions is data coupled to interpretations, virtual intellectual products can be grounded through critique and citations. The real-world basis for a virtual world may include multiple sources of evidence. This paper will demonstrate a methodology for making ambiguity, the quality of the evidence, and alternative reconstructions dynamically transparent to a user. This methodology harnesses the dynamism and perceptual expectations of multimedia-literate users. In our experiments, we have mainly used Flash and rollovers to create a static version of a “self-tour” that lets the viewer engage ambiguity and evidence in a virtual world dynamically and interactively so that the level of confidence can be mediated and adjusted as desired. By creating these tools, reconstructions can be explicitly linked to the real world while maintaining the flexibility, experience, and interactivity of the multimedia environment. Most importantly, the virtual rendition offers researchers the ability to show a complex set of variables dynamically, thereby allowing them to be intuitively and interactively grasped in combination, a process that is not presently possible using standard techniques of static research presentation.