Historians Charles Matz and Jonathan Michael Dillon went to the Muslim holy city of Harar in Ethiopa to take 3D scans of the city's historic structures. They captured the crumbling contours of the UNESCO world heritage site, and in the process, created a new form of art by also digitally recording the people and scenes around them.

Using cutting-edge lidar technology, a 3D scanner that maps the contours of surfaces and structures, the pair was able to artfully record very detailed digital images of the site and its surroundings.

"We're interested in providing virtual walk-throughs or access to works of art without having to actually visit the space," Matz said. "So, for example, many of these World Heritage Sites are inaccessible or very hard to get to. We're interested in recording them and making them available as public domain so people can experience what these places are like on the computer."

The potential for lidar use by visual artists is just emerging as the technology improves, say the historians.

"[Lidar] technology hasn't quite developed where it can accumulate this information quickly because the data sets are very dense. We're talking gigabytes and gigabytes of information," Matz said.

For now, the pair are looking into presenting their virtual tours to the public.