An Educational Application of Computer Graphics for Enriching Historical Understanding of the XX Century

The World Wide Web acts as a powerful resource for exploring history and studying past facts. However, visualizing the evolution of these events in their spatial context can be a challenging endeavor. Fortunately, new technologies like virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), or simply 3D desktop visualization are being used to create immersive learning experiences, transporting students to different places and times. As technology continues to evolve, we can expect the emergence of even more innovative and effective approaches to enhance learning. The project under examination in this thesis is an example of this, indeed outlines the plans for improving an existing Unity educational application, carried forward by the Department of Control and Computer Engineering (DAUIN) at the Politecnico di Torino. This software, still in development, allows users to interactively visualize the evolution of Earth's civilizations across centuries. At its core, the application currently includes a 3D globe that users can explore like a conventional map. However, it is enriched with historical events, placed where and when they occurred. These events comprehend significant battles, milestones in arts and science, advancements in technology, crucial treaties, and other occurrences that have shaped the course of civilization. Additionally, the application allows users to filter events based on their type, enabling a focused exploration of specific historical aspects. The primary objective of this application is to provide a profound understanding of the geographical and chronological context of historical events. To achieve this, it incorporates a slider allowing users to navigate backward and forward through time, for now, spanning half a century in each direction. Furthermore, another important feature is showing the variability of the countries' borders over time. This feature not only facilitates the examination of territorial expansions and conquests but also provides insight into the birth of nations themselves. Besides the events, the application includes also detailed information about the main cities within each state, categorized into capitals, regional capitals, and simple towns. This feature greatly enhances the ability to locate and contextualize historical events, making the learning experience even more immersive and informative. The enhancements to this application made by me and treated in this thesis focus on amplifying interactivity and introducing new educational and informative features. The primary improvement involves the addition of two different scenes, representing the "1901-1950" and the "1951-2000" periods, each populated with thousands of historical events. Each one is accompanied by a title, a concise description, the date of occurrence, and a link to relevant Wikipedia resources. Another notable feature of the application is the ability to group states sharing the same color. This feature can be used to highlight, for instance, various colonies that persisted into the twentieth century, offering users a unique visual perspective on historical geopolitical relationships. The outcomes of this thesis will contribute significantly to the growth of this project, which aims to be utilized for history education in schools and as a broader resource for research into the use of virtual reality, augmented reality, and computer graphics for educational purposes. The thesis will demonstrate how these technologies can improve the interactivity of educational applications.