Title: Watchtowers and Computers

Speaker: Alberto B. Foglia

Alberto B. Foglia will present his Master's thesis on the possible functions of the turret structures on Hadrian's Wall. In the 2nd century, Roman Emperor Hadrian constructed a series of frontier works across northern Britain to consolidate this northern corner of the Roman Empire. However, how the frontier, and the component structures of the wall, operated is still debated. Alberto created a GIS to perform a viewshed analysis of the smallest structures on the Wall, the so-called 'turrets', to see how well they performed as watch towers.

He will also present on some work he has been doing on making 3D reconstructions of parts of Hadrian's Wall.

Alberto is an archaeologist and GIS specialist at PanGIS. His graduate studies involved using GIS to assess the surveillance capabilities of the towers built into Hadrian’s Wall in Northern England. His extensive skill set includes ArcGIS Online Web App development, photogrammetry, and 3D modeling. He has been working with PanGIS’ Remote Sensing team, using his skills to enhance the 3D models derived from sUAS (drone) and fixed-wing flights.