Walk in the shoes of an archeologist at these Spanish heritage sites

We met with Simon Sadek, director of 360 Virtual Tour Company, to tell us about the six digital twins of historic sites he captured on the island of Ibiza with Matterport. 

What inspired the 3D capture of these sites?

I met with one of the senior archaeological curators of the largest heritage museum on the island and discussed the benefits of 360 and 3D capture technology. They were impressed with the vast array of functionality available from the one scan visit - from visualising the space in a fully immersive and interactive manner to the measurement tools and photo capturing capabilities. What started with scanning one museum expanded to capturing the main heritage sites across the Island of Ibiza with surrounding government councils wanting the same for their heritage places.

Final results were posted across their website channels, and local press quickly heard about the project and published articles on the scanned models. This created a huge buzz, attracting more online visits as well as physical visits to the sites.

What are the “must-sees” you want visitors to explore and why?

The main idea is for visitors to experience the sites in a truly immersive and life-like manner with Matterport digital twins. A major requirement was to expand the audience reach especially to those that may not be able to travel to the museum or heritage sites.  Museums are also a great tool in school environments and are often included as part of the curriculum and teaching. All of the tours we created have been heavily used in classroom environments by history and archaeology teachers and received fantastic feedback from their students.

What’s the one thing you want visitors to take away after exploring your 3D tours of archaeological sites?

I want visitors to truly take their time, explore the sites, take in the detail captured, explore the archeology and history, and read the captions that provide more context. I know that these tours have been viewed by hundreds of thousands of visitors already, which makes me want to go out and capture even more hard-to-reach areas to share with the world.

Do you have any plans to capture more 3D experiences?

Absolutely! My clients range all over the spectrum of industries, including government, town center management, heritage sites, engineering groups, luxury hotels, and so much more. The technology is fascinating and I am excited to be a part of it.

With the recent announcements of the Metaverse (those who don't know what this means — Google it!) I see digital twin creation as even more of a necessity in coming months and years. This is an exciting time to be part of this creation and I am keen to get involved with my network of contacts to share knowledge and experience — both with Matterport directly and beyond.