Virtual Victoria. Visualizing a Victorian city with digital maps, views and GIS

paper
Authorship
  1. 1. Patrick A. Dunae

    Malaspina University

Work text
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Abstract

What did a late 19th century Canadian city look like? What did it feel like? How was residential and commercial space utilized? We can address these questions in a computer-mediated application that allows us to visualize a Victorian city. In the prototype described in this paper, we focused on Victoria, British Columbia, circa 1891.

The application comprises several components. It utilizes attribute data derived from census records, tax rolls and street directories. It features digital image maps based on bird's eye views and panoramic photographs of the city in 1891. The image maps connect streets, buildings and activities shown in the prints and photographs to our attribute data. The data and the images provide the foundation for an historical GIS of the city. Using these resources along with video, photo imaging and 3-D modeling software, we have created scenarios where users can fly over the city and to zoom in and out of 1891 streetscapes. The scenarios and our GIS layer will be available at web site called Virtual Victoria. At the Virtual Victoria web site, students, researchers and the general public can visualize and interact with a late Victorian city.

Introduction

In the early 1960s, G. M. Young, the distinguished historian of Victorian England, famously exhorted students to "read until you can hear people talking." He meant, of course, that students could best connect intellectually and emotionally to the past by immersing themselves in the literature of the period. Historians of Victorian Canada encourage students in similar ways. We enjoin students to read contemporary novels, newspapers and memoirs as a way of connecting with the past. Like Young, we want students to be so acutely attuned that they can hear people from the past talking.

But we have an advantage over history practitioners forty years ago. We have the advantage of digital convergence. Empowered by multimedia and other computer technologies, we can see the Victorians more clearly than ever before. Using archival records and new technologies, we can create a milieu where students can visualize a Victorian city and an historical environment where perceptive students can "hear people talking." This is the promise and allure of humanities computing for the historian.

We are exceptionally well positioned in this city, because we have broad foundation to build on. In terms of digital historical data, Victoria may be one of the best-documented cities in Canada. Thanks to an initiative started about ten years ago at the University of Victoria and Malaspina University-College, we have an extraordinarily rich dataset to work with. We have a 100% sample of the nominal census records, plus digital versions of city directories and tax assessment rolls from 1881 to 1901. These records are readily accessible on our Vancouver Island web site at vi — an abbreviation for "Vancouver Island" — history. The vihistory web site is located at .

Historical records available on the vihistory.ca web site comprise the attribute data for this application. But while our study is grounded with those records, I will start our discussion from a different perspective — from the air.

I. Visualizing the City with Lithographic Views

Panoramic lithographic views — also known as panoramic maps and bird's eye views — are one of the best sources available to historians who want to visualize, understand and represent nineteenth century cities in Canada. Of course, the views were idealized and somewhat fanciful. In the main, however, panoramic views provide a very good representation of urban space. The 1889 panoramic view of Victoria is remarkably accurate in its depiction of the city and so is a valuable component in this project. We have created an effect that enables viewers to connect the lithograph with a sequence of contemporary photographs taken from the top Victoria's highest building in 1890. We have also linked the images to our dataset of census records and street directories, thus creating an interactive faux GIS.

II. Visualizing & Populating the Victorian City with GIS

Urban historians and historical geographers face another challenge. We not only want to visualize the Victorian city, we want to populate the Victorian city. We want to populate it with the residents who actually lived and worked in the urban spaces we are endeavouring to re-create. In the second half of this presentation, I will discuss the power and potential of a full — rather than a faux — GIS application. I will describe briefly some exciting projects already developed by urban historians and historical geographers in the United States and Great Britain. I will demonstrate how we are building an historical GIS of Victoria using historical census records and digital cadastral layer of the modern city of Victoria. With technical assistance from GIS professionals in the Capital Regional District of Victoria and consultants from ESRI Canada, we have started on a prototype that has immense potential for students and researchers. In this part of my presentation deal with datasets and simulations generated by ArcGIS and a 3-D modeling program, CommunityViz.

The presentation will conclude by connecting 21st century 3-D models with the isometric models seen in Victorian lithographs. In my closing remarks, I will emphasize the value of utilizing archival records with new technologies, and the promise of research methods and digital applications derived from other disciplines.

Conference Info

In review

ACH/ALLC / ACH/ICCH / ALLC/EADH - 2005

Hosted at University of Victoria

Victoria, British Columbia, Canada

June 15, 2005 - June 18, 2005

139 works by 236 authors indexed

Affiliations need to be double checked.

Conference website: http://web.archive.org/web/20071215042001/http://web.uvic.ca/hrd/achallc2005/

Series: ACH/ICCH (25), ALLC/EADH (32), ACH/ALLC (17)

Organizers: ACH, ALLC

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  • Language: English
  • Topics: None