Updated

A team of Brisbane animators is using old photographs to develop a smartphone app that will allow people to take a virtual stroll through the history of the city's streets.

Source: 7.30 Queensland | Duration: 5min 32sec

Topics: brisbane-4000

Transcript

MATT WORDSWORTH: Have you ever stood on a street corner and wondered what it would be like to watch the world roll back in time? Well a small group of 3-D animators in Brisbane did and they've set about making it possible. The team has begun the massive task of trawling through historic records and photographs to recreate the capital digitally. And the virtual reality they've created could soon be available to all of us. Josh Bavas reports.

(HIGH DEFINITION ANIMATED VISION)

JOSH BAVAS: Welcome to Brisbane circa 1890 in full colour, high definition and accurate to a T.

NAT HARROLD, 3D ANIMATOR: You just stand there; you're the master of time. This is basically a time machine.

LOUISE DENOON, CURATOR QLD STATE LIBRARY: To walk a day in the shoes of someone in the past, you know is an exciting idea.

JOSH BAVAS: Nestled in a heritage storehouse in the CBD, Nat Harrold and his small group of animators work quietly on their computers. They're digitally modelling city landmarks and dozens of lesser known buildings that have fallen in the last century or so.

NAT HARROLD: It's a crazy idea. That's what it is. It's about setting up a 4-dimentional, interactive, experiential historical database.

(OLD PHOTOGRAPHS OF BRISBANE)

JOSH BAVAS: Spare time is spent pouring over old photographs, to get a picture of the shops and businesses which once flourished.

NAT HARROLD: I knew there was a fair bit of history to Brisbane. I really started to poke around and then from there I just explored the idea and tossed it around to the lads here.

(FOOTAGE OF RENDERED ANIMATION VISION)

JOSH BAVAS: So far the team has built a chronological history of Edward Street and recreated past vistas in other pockets of town. Eventually they hope people in the street will be able to detour down memory lane all via an app on their smart-phone or tablet.

(NAT HARROLD SHOWING FOOTAGE TO BYSTANDER)

BYSTANDER: Oh wow!

NAT HARROLD: So this street here like this is 7Eleven over there? See the 7Eleven shop over there?

BYSTANDER: Yes, yes

NAT HARROLD: We've got some very cool building here and then we go back towards an old iron monger.

BYSTANDER: Ohhhhh!

(FOOTAGE OF RENDERED ANIMATION VISION)

JOSH BAVAS: And history buffs will be able to choose which period they'd like to see.

BYSTANDER2: It's amazing what technology can do.

(FOOTAGE OF YouTube clip)

JOSH BAVAS: Augmented reality has already been used in Europe to recreate ancient buildings.

YouTube Clip: They can see how this ruin remains. They can go back to the second century before Christ turning into this building.

JOSH BAVAS: But no-one's ever tried to rebuild a whole city.

BYSTANDER3: The old buildings beautiful. There's no comparison is there?

JOSH BAVAS: And the experience will only get better. A virtual reality headset recently developed in the United States is expected to dramatically change the media landscape.

(FOOTAGE OF MAN WEARING VIRTUAL REALITY GOGGLES)

REALITY GOGGLES WEARER: It's pretty cool; you can actually read the signage.

JOSH BAVAS: The Brisbane team is plugging it into the digital time vortex.

(FOOTAGE OF JOSH BAVAS IN VIRTUAL REALITY VISION)

JOSH BAVAS: The technology allows users to be immersed in the 3D world, giving them the closest experience of walking in down town Brisbane to see and hear what it would have been like all those years ago.

NAT HARROLD: It's just somewhere we can wind back time and actually put these things into real context and experience them.

(FOOTAGE OF WAREHOUSES ON MARGARET STREET)

JOSH BAVAS: And while technology alone won't save these old brick warehouses on Margaret Street it will preserve them in the digital world. Earlier this year, Brisbane City Council controversially approved their demolition to make way for a new apartment tower. At the 11th hour, the State Government has called a halt until the heritage value of the buildings can be further assessed. But animators aren't taking any chances determined to capture a virtual slice of the 20th Century.

LOUISE DENOON: We're in a continuum, in that what we're collecting today; the decisions, right and wrong, you know are the things that people will look back at in the future.

(MORE FOOTAGE OF OLD PHOTOGRAPHS)

JOSH BAVAS: The Brisbane project is only possible thanks to the rare photographs stored away by countless careful hands over the past century. The pictures they've saved show an almost unrecognisable cityscape.

LOUISE DENOON: You think of the librarians 100 years ago, 50 years ago, collecting these photographs that are now being transformed into something that they wouldn't of been able to be conceive.

JOSH BAVAS: It could be months or even years before the historic jig-saw puzzle comes to life. Some of the missing pieces might be hidden in the albums, attics or cupboards of every-day Queenslanders.

NAT HARROLD: Once you've kind of got your head around how it all goes together, we're pretty skilled at actually making it. So the actual process of making it or creation doesn't take long at all. It's really that collaboration and trying to check the veracity of the information.

JOSH BAVAS: But at least Edward Street is now in the vault.

LOUISE DENOON: How extraordinary that you'll be able to see what Edward Street felt like and looked like in real time not just a one dimensional static image.

JOSH BAVAS: A full colour blast from the past saved rather than erased by progress.