Reimagining Medieval Nájera

Since 2015, the Najerilla Valley Research Project has been documenting the medieval architectural and<br>archaeological heritage of the city of Nájera (La Rioja, Spain). In an attempt to better visualize the city's<br>development between the 10th and 15th centuries, we have created a site GIS that incorporates a variety of<br>spatial data. This paper presents our initial efforts to 'make the leap' from this traditional 2D form of data<br>visualization to a 3D reconstruction of the city across time. A relatively simple 3D model offers the potential to<br>answer basic research questions about the evolution of the urban center across time, with a minimum<br>expenditure of time and resources. At the same time, a more detailed visualization using ESRI CityEngine and<br>reconstructions of individual buildings can be used to recreate the city in a variety of virtual formats, from more<br>scholarly presentations to virtual cityscapes that can be made accessible to visitors to the city. This paper<br>discusses the relative costs and possibilities afforded by these different methodologies. We recommend a<br>stepwise approach that permits research questions to be honed by the creation of simpler models prior to<br>larger efforts, a tactic that allows for the maximum efficiency in the use of scarce computer and personnel<br>resources.