The digitization of Langweil's model of Prague is in full swing

Prague - Work on the three-dimensional digitization of Langweil's model of Prague is in full swing. By the end of February, the city museum will have an application for professionals, and in a few months, the public will also be able to see the results. People will be able to virtually explore the nooks of the city center as it appeared in the first half of the last century. The digitization will cost 12.5 million CZK, said Zuzana Strnadová, the director of the city museum, to reporters today.
    Interested parties will see places that no longer exist today. These include the former Jewish quarter. They will also be able to view St. Vitus Cathedral before its final construction was completed.
    The digitization of the unique paper model, which Antonín Langweil worked on from 1826 until his death in 1837, is, according to experts from Visual Connection, a demanding task. Around 300,000 photographs have been taken. Just on the right bank of the Vltava River, there are about 600 trees and 3,600 chimneys in the model. For example, the gravestones in the Jewish cemetery have a volume of one cubic millimeter.
    Some details, such as those on the cathedral, Langweil created so precisely that even modern technology could not capture them. "None of the machines are capable of displaying them," said Jan Buriánek from Visual Connection. Experts discovered a millimeter-wide alley during the digitization that is not visible to the naked eye in the model.
    The first results of the work, which began two years ago, will be primarily for conservationists and architects. They will be able to find out what a specific building looked like in the past. Langweil captured the appearance of the Old Town, Malá Strana without Petřín, and Prague Castle and Hradčany in detail over an area of about 20 square meters.
    The public will be able to walk through the streets of old Prague on the internet, where there will be a simplified version of the digitized model. According to Strnadová, in the future, Langweil's model is expected to be displayed in the urbanism exhibition in the new museum building in Florence, which is planned for construction between 2011 and 2013. The building might also include a small cinema for screening three-dimensional films.
    Langweil's model of Prague has been in the city museum since 1961 and was restored until 1970. Since last April, it has been in a new showcase with better lighting. A new feature is also a movable camera that allows visitors to zoom in on details of Langweil’s model and view them on a screen. More than 2,000 buildings are captured in color on the model at a scale of 1:480, including all details of facades, courtyards, gardens, outbuildings, and plots. In the case of many vanished buildings, the model is the only witness to their former appearance.