World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 comes alive on computer screens

UCLA modeling expert lets viewers marvel at Chicago World's Fair that drew 27 million people from around the world. Nico Viele Lisa Snyder/UCLA - UCLA modeling and visualization expert Lisa Snyder has spent almost two decades researching and then recreating the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893. Her use of interactive media is leading to new approaches to teaching using 3-D content. For the last 18 years, Lisa Snyder has been bringing to vibrant life the bygone glory of a true architectural, social and cultural wonder — the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, known to many as the Chicago World's Fair. For six months on the cusp of a new century, more than 27 million people from all over the world came to the 633-acre site in Chicago's Jackson Park to marvel at this stunning showcase of ingenuity, invention, industrial achievement and entertainment — spread out among more than 200 temporary and permanent structures that represented 46 nations, including grand pavilions and vast exhibition halls. Using advanced interactive media technology, Snyder, a modeling and visualization expert with UCLA's Institute for Digital Research and Education , has now made it possible for contemporary "visitors" to stroll through the grounds of the exposition in an immersive, full-color, 3-D "space" and share the excitement of visitors on the scene, garbed in period dress. This past Saturday at a sold-out event in Chicago, Snyder presented her simulation to an audience at the Museum of Science and Industry, the only exposition building to have survived at the Jackson Park site, where it began life as the Fine Arts Building.