Tomb Raider

A rodent click - and a associate of a pharaoh's funeral retinue turns around.

One more click - and the animated figure invites you inside the snaking, slight corridors of a of the world's many splendid structures - the Great Pyramid of Khufu, moreover well known as the Great Pyramid of Cheops.

Peering in to the shade by his musty red and blue 3D glasses, very old Egypt fan Keith Payne is gripped by the centuries-old story maturation before his eyes as if by a time-travel lens.

"This is amazing!" he says. "I regard that being able to use a 3D computer graphics apparatus to try Khufu's pyramid is unequivocally a entire new way of both learning and teaching.

"Being able to postponement the exegesis and probably take manage of the camera to go wherever in the stage and try for yourself, and then lapse to the documentary where you left off is a way of learning that was never unequivocally existing before now."

This interactive journey, initial presented to the open in a 3D entertainment in Paris, has right away migrated onto the home desktop.

To watch the film, users simply download a plug-in and enclose a span of 3D eyeglasses - nonetheless the program gives the prodigy of height without them too, to a obtuse extent.

And it functions with 3D TVs, too.

With help of cutting-edge 3D technology, the video lets users take a look inside the 146m-high Great Pyramid, the final of the 7 wonders of the very old world still standing.

The stage appears as it might have 45 centuries ago - full of the constant people of the second woman monarch of the fourth dynasty.

But the movie is not pristine entertainment - on top of the informative aspect, it tries to notify a of the theories at the back the pyramid's construction.

Lying north of modern-day Cairo, the largest and oldest of the 3 pyramids of the stately necropolis of Giza is believed to have been built as Khufu's tomb.

Inside, it contains 3 funeral chambers - a underground, a second well known as the Queen's Chamber that was presumably expected is to pharaoh's dedicated statue, and the King's Chamber.

This latter is located roughly precisely in the center of the structure, and it is there where the pharaoh's slab sarcophagus lies, but no ma has ever been found.

What you are unaware is how this huge monument, done of two million mill blocks that import an median of 2.5 tonnes each, was obviously built.

The interactive 3D movie outlines a hypothesis.

"It is a theory that explains how the Egyptians, who had no iron, no wheels and no pulleys, were able to erect such a large structure," says the project's interactive executive Mehdi Tayoubi from French program definite Dassault Systemes .

"Most of all, it explains how they managed to obtain huge beams weighing around 60 tonnes any all the way up to the King's Chamber."

The thought has been drafted by French designer Jean-Pierre Houdin.

It differs neatly from other renouned theory that suggests that very old engineers used an outward mill ramp, arching its way to the top. No earthy indication to encouragement such a network has ever been found.

Instead, Mr Houdin insists that the ramp was inside the pyramid - as a result it is invisible from the outside.

The computer simulations done with Dassault Systemes appear to encouragement this belief.

But not everybody agrees. Professor of Egyptology at Harvard University, Peter Der Manuelian points out that this theory as well lacks plain proof.

"Mr Houdin has worked very hard to try to notify many of the features inside the Great Pyramid, he's of course a dedicated researcher," he says.

"But until you can do a few non-invasive means of confirming or denying his hypothesis, you will have to leave it as only a theory."

But the designer insists that there is a few systematic subsidy to his thoughts.

For instance, in 1986 a French group used microgravimetry - a technique that measures the firmness of not similar sections of a make up to discover dark chambers.

The consequent indicate showed a extraordinary pattern - a vale that seems to breeze the walls up the inside of the pyramid.

And it is probable to obtain even more evidence, says Mr Houdin.

Cracking the very old relic open not being an option, his group motionless to portion the greeting of the pyramid to extraneous factors - such as heat.

To do that, they got in hold with specialists in infrared imagery from the University Laval in Canada who have motionless to set up special cameras around the pyramid.

"In Egypt, air temperatures change severely between day and night - and rocks in the pyramid conflict accordingly," explains Mr Houdin.

"If the pyramid is a plain structure, then according to our computer simulations, in the summer at noon it will be hotter at the top as there's reduction mass, and cooler at the bottom, where the chilled belligerent helps to cool it from below.

"But if there's an inner ramp, it will be the other way around - the pyramid will be cooler at the top."

Setting up a few cameras might appear elementary enough, but for this next step to succeed, the joint general project contingency be okayed by the Egyptian authorities - who have so far been demure to give any type of certain response.

Besides the infrared proof, a other traveler could moreover help exhibit what is dark in pharaoh Khufu's almighty lazy place.

Meet Djedi - a minuscule drudge that has been exploring the pyramid is to past two years.

Its name, nonetheless suggestive of the Star Wars warriors, belongs to an very old Egyptian illusionist whom Khufu consulted when office building the pyramid.

The project is a well-defined a from Jean-Pierre Houdin's construction analysis, but has moreover been created with help of Dassault Systemes - and in conspiring with an general group of researchers.

Djedi's assignment is to go on the work of its predecessors.

After the pyramid's principal chambers were discovered, researchers were undetermined by a engaging fact.

They found two true slight shafts 20cm by 20 cm that related the King's Chamber with the outward world that were thought to have been used for ventilation.

There are two similar shafts that go from the Queen's Chamber, but never attain the walls, mysteriously interlude apparently nowhere.

In 2002, a drudge crawled to the mill in the finish of the missile and resolutely drilled a hole in it, transmitting live images so the entire world could declare the short time of unveiling.

But that assignment failed.

A second door, secret for more than 4,000 years, shut off the way - and Djedi right away has to cavalcade a hole in that too.

"The Great Pyramid is a indeed unique and superb make up - the shafts and "doors" do not exist in any other very old Egyptian building," says the project personality Shaun Whitehead.

"Finding out because they are there will give us a larger perception in to the techniques and determination of an amazing civilised world from 4,500 years ago."

The drudge crawls deliver as a automatic inchworm, armed with an endoscopic "snake camera" that can look in to tough to attain spaces.

It is moreover versed with a drill, hopefully long sufficient to attain and overcome the second door.

And it has already sent back a few exciting images.

In May 2011, Djedi found what looked similar to very old wall scrawl in-between the two doors.

As these two separate, but interrelated projects progress, you might be on the very corner of uncovering a few our past's paramount secrets.