A 3D Reconstruction of the South Santee River Flow as Part of the Hampton Plantation Virtual Landscape Project

The Hampton Plantation State Historic Site in South Carolina represents a significant part of America’s history. The Virtual Hampton project aims to reconstruct the plantation’s history along with its cultural elements in a 3D immersive and digital visualization to educate the public of Hampton’s true beauty. The South Santee River was an important resource in the landscape and vital to the function of the plantation. This study uses highly accurate LIDAR data and ArcGIS software to convert the landscape into a digital terrain and the Unity 3D game engine software to reconstruct the Santee River network. The physical aspects of the river can be modeled using Unity’s particle system effect. Particle systems allow for the digital reconstruction of the river’s natural flow through the landscape by emitting water-like particles. Experiments with the visualization showed that rivers and channels needed to be treated as different types of bodies to cater to their varying behavior. The final flow model created using these methods can be used for practical purposes such as the past functionality of the river as an irrigation source or even the water’s effect on Hampton’s landscape.