National Group for Defense against Earthquakes UR DISTART Bologna Univeristy

with the collaboration of:

Earthquakes of September and October 1997 in Umbria-Marche (Central Italy) Virtual exploration of the epicentral zone R. Camassi, E. Cova, E. Ercolani, GNDT c/o DISTART UNIBO G. Monachesi, OGS Macerata L. Postpischl, By-the-Web srl in QuickTime Virtual Reality (download plugin software)

Earthquake damage photographic images are always a valuable element for seismologists, since they give a clear perception of the level of damage and permit to analyse technical characteristics of the buildings involved. The single picture is nevertheless limited, because it always introduces a decontestualization from the global environment. These virtual reality scenes add the possibility to evaluate precious details such as destroyed building side-by-side with apparently undamaged ones, and to correlate this observations with a building tipology analysis. The environments presented here are mid/low resolution versions of the material that had been developed to achieve a more thorough and correct interpretation of the sismic event. The photographic survey for the first five locations listed in the following table had been completed on September the 29th. Since then the situation has evolved considerably, both for further shocks and for consolidation and demolition interventions. The Sellano and Monte Santo scenes where completed on October the 16th.

Annifo (Foligno)	in the streets of Villa	1.4 Mb, 7 visual points
Arvello (Foligno)	damages in a private courtyard	230 kb, single visual points
Arvello (Foligno)	the main crossroad	450 kb, single visual point
S. Martino (Serravalle di Chienti)	along the road to 'Colle'	600 kb, 3 visual points
Cesi (Serravalle di Chienti)	Walkthrough along the main street	950 kb, 5 visual points
Sellano	the historic urban area	760 Kb, 4 visual points
Monte Santo (Sellano)	The church and nearby buildings	420 kb, 2 visual points

Instructions for plugin installation Instructions for interactive navigation in QTVR scenes The files are best viewed with a monitor set to 'thousands of colors' and with Netscape 3.0, Microsoft Explorer 3.0 or following versions