The Book of Fame 3D Book Viewer is a prototype application built in Unity that allows users to interact with a IIIF-served medieval manuscript in the form of a three-dimensional book. The latest build of the prototype was compiled and published on April 8, 2018. Download links to the Mac OS X and Windows builds are available in the Vatican2017 repository of our Github.
The Book of Fame 3D Book Viewer "unflattens" the e-book, allowing readers to get closer to digital facsimiles of rare book artifacts than ever before. Experience the depth of the manuscript that only a three-dimensional environment uilt in Unity can provide, using simplified user inputs to interact with manuscripts in ways that mimic the real-life experience of holding a book in your hands.
Features include:
- Enter into a virtual rendition of the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library and interact with a composite 3D book based on existing medieval artifacts.
- Read Chaucer's "Wife of Bath's Tale" from the IIIF-served manuscript Bodmer 48, pages 81v through 87r, as textures mapped onto the modelled pages of a rare medieval book.
- Click and drag to turn fully modelled pages objects in 3D space.
- Raise a magnifying glass to the page to reveal a plain-text transcription of the scribal hand.
Version 1.0 programmed by Chris Chianelli.
Version 2.0 (latest) programmed by Stefano Della Croce.
Book model created by Jaron Evans and Isaac Munene.
Binding is based on MS Wellington Bible Society from the Alexander Turnbull Library.
IIIF-served manuscript is the "Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale" from Bodmer 48, hosted by e-Codices.org.