The Tholos area shows a virtual journey to Athens from archaic times to the Roman era, getting a close up view of the city’s temples and beautiful buildings. With the goddess Athena as guide in the Agora visitors watch the destruction of Athens by the Persians, participate in building the Poikile Stoa, follow the Panathenaic Procession and can even vote in a process known as ‘ostrakismos’ which allowed citizens to vote out men who where believed to be a threat for the good of the city; visitors take part in this process by pressing a button next to their seats and expressing their opinion of who they want to depart. Finally, the newest virtual reality tour takes visitors on a walk through Ancient Olympia, the cradle of the Olympic Games.
‘The target was to create a user-friendly GUI to enable the FHW staff to run the show by pressing just a single button,’ says Dimitris Mexis, responsible engineer for control systems at Telmaco. ‘Two different timelines were created, one for the pre-show area and one for the main show in the Tholos area. In addition, some more pages were created in the GUI, in order to control each device separately.’
