Heritage you can virtually visit

About the competition

Cultural heritage is often taken for granted by many Maltese people who rarely, if ever, take time to visit and appreciate the islands' historic sites. But what if people could experience heritage from a whole new perspective by zooming into the elaborate sculptures and paintings inside St John's Co-Cathedral online?

Wouldn't it be interesting to get a close-up of the Mosta Dome's peak from the outside while sitting at your computer?

Microsoft Malta has launched a local heritage competition to encourage people to appreciate their heritage by applying a new piece of software called PhotoSynth. The system stitches together a series of photos of a particular site and transforms the information into a three-dimensional image.

The competition is divided into two sections - one for primary and secondary school students who can compete as a class in who makes the best virtual model and the other for the general public.

Contestants get to pick a heritage site, take a series of photos and apply the Photosynth software. The photos need not be professional and can be taken by various people. By selecting salient features of the photographed area, the software then builds a collage that allows for a virtual walkthrough.