Digital images played an important role in the construction of the Herodian Temple Mount real-time visual simulation model. During a site visit in April of 1999, Urban Simulation Team modeler Lisa M. Snyder took over 900 images of the excavations with a digital camera. The images were initially used as a guide during the construction of the model's geometry. Later, they were used as source material for texture maps (two-dimensional images mapped onto the model's surface geometry to give form and detail to the objects). As of January 1, 2001, the Herodian Temple Mount model contained 1,175,847 individual triangles, each texture mapped with one of 301 different textures.

A perspective-corrected image of the southwestern corner of the Temple Mount served as a guide to create the detailed monumental building stones at the platform base. The image shown below was mapped onto the geometry of the platform; after cutting the horizontal courses of building stone, the vertical joints defining the monumental stones were cut based on the digital image and texture mapped with an image of a single stone. The remaining buildings stones were texture mapped with one of three repeating textures of a generic Herodian building block.

Texture map creation and reconstruction are discussed in greater length in the following pages.