Heritage sites sell their story, not just their stones. It is a demonstration we built ourselves: no client commissioned it, and anything marked sample is made up and says so on screen.
How it was made
We rebuilt the Giza plateau as a Gaussian splat from one stock drone clip, found each pyramid in the model, and put it on a timeline: press a year and Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure rise to the height they had reached, in the order they were built. AI pictures the same view in that year from the very same camera, so you can drag between the past and the 3D model, or lift the picture itself into 3D with depth fitted to the real plateau. Hologram figures walk the plateau's real routes, hauling blocks from the quarry and up the ramp, then processing along the causeways once each pyramid is finished. The Sphinx and Elephant Rock at AlUla get their own before and after.
Frames placed by the camera solve: 195 of 195. 0.56 px average error
Held-out frames, rebuilt vs real: 35.4 dB PSNR. SSIM 0.930, LPIPS 0.163
Menkaure's height in the model: 58.8 m. Scale set by Khafre; Khufu not measured
Depth of the real frame vs solved points, held out: 3.0% median error. 90th percentile 10.6%
Map fit on the three pyramids: 10 to 21 m. Model 3.6% larger than the map
Browser download: 2.9 MB preview, 13.8 MB full. Pictures in 3D 2.4 MB each
What it will not tell you
The AI pictures and the walking figures are illustrations, labelled as such: temples, ramps and crowds follow the historical record but their details are guesses, and figures are drawn three times life size so they read from the air. The rising pyramids are today's pyramids cut at a height, not their unfinished cores. The drone flew one side, so the far faces are soft, and Khufu is too hidden behind Khafre to measure. A measurement taken from a capture is a guide: where a figure matters legally or commercially, the surveyed number rules, and nothing here replaces an inspection.
Giza from one drone clip, raised in the order it was built.
A 65-second drone flight over the Giza plateau, rebuilt as a 3D scene you can fly around. Press a year and each pyramid rises to the height it had reached: Khufu first, then Khafre, then Menkaure. Beside it, an AI model pictures the same view in that year, from the same camera, so you can drag between then and the 3D rebuild.
AI picture3D rebuild, same camera
Today3D rebuild from one drone clip
Loading the 3D plateau
Year
Show
Look
Three reigns
What rises when
Dates are the usual Egyptological estimates and differ by a few decades between sources. Heights in the model are measured from its own points, with the scale set by Khafre.
Pyramid
Built
Height when built
Height today
In our 3D model
Two more sites
The Sphinx, and a rock nobody built
Real frames from two short clips, beside AI pictures of the same view. Drag the line, or use the slider under each one.
c. 2500 BC · AI pictureToday · photo
The Great Sphinx
Carved from the bedrock of the plateau, most likely under Khafre. Traces of red and yellow paint survive, and the nose was lost centuries ago. The pictures leave off the stone beard, which was probably added much later.
1st century AD · AI pictureToday · photo
Jabal AlFil (Elephant Rock), AlUla
No one built this one. It is sandstone shaped by wind and water. What changed is who passed by: AlUla sat on the incense route, and the Nabataeans ruled nearby Hegra in the 1st century AD. The rock is left exactly as it is; only the caravan and the missing car are imagined.
How we built it
From a stock drone clip to a timeline
Limits
AI pictures are illustrations, not reconstructions. Casing, temples and causeways follow the historical record, but the layout of every building is the model's guess. How the blocks were raised, including the shape of any ramps, is still debated.
The walking figures are imagined. Their routes follow the published layout of the plateau (the quarry, the workers' town, the causeways), placed from map coordinates to within about 20 m, but the numbers of people, the team sizes and the ramps are illustrations. Figures are drawn three times life size so they can be seen from the air, and time runs about 80 times faster than life.
The rising pyramids are our 3D model of the pyramids as they stand today, cut at a height. They show how far each had got, not what the unfinished core looked like.
The drone flew one side of the plateau, so the far faces and the city behind are soft or missing when you fly round.
Khufu stands behind Khafre for most of the flight, so its top is poorly seen and we don't measure its height; the model uses its real height instead.
The footage is free stock footage, not our own capture. The same process works on a site's own drone flight.
For museums, heritage sites and tourism boards
Want your site in 3D, with its history beside it?
One flight or walk-through gives a 3D scene visitors can open on a phone. We can add the timeline, the before and after, and guided tours for exhibitions and websites.
