Developing serious games for cultural heritage: a state-of-the-art review

Although the widespread use of gaming for leisure purposes has been well documented, the use of games to support cultural heritage purposes, such as historical teaching and learning, or for enhancing museum visits, has been less well considered. The state-of-the-art in serious game technology is identical to that of the state-of-the-art in entertainment games technology. As a result, the field of serious heritage games concerns itself with recent advances in computer games, real-time computer graphics, virtual and augmented reality and artificial intelligence. On the other hand, the main strengths of serious gaming applications may be generalised as being in the areas of communication, visual expression of information, collaboration mechanisms, interactivity and entertainment. In this report, we will focus on the state-of-the-art with respect to the theories, methods and technologies used in serious heritage games. We provide an overview of existing literature of relevance to the domain, discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the described methods and point out unsolved problems and challenges. In addition, several case studies illustrating the application of methods and technologies used in cultural heritage are presented

Serious Games in Cultural Heritage

Although the widespread use of gaming for leisure purposes has been well documented, the use of games to support cultural heritage purposes, such as historical teaching and learning, or for enhancing museum visits, has been less well considered. The state-of-the-art in serious game technology is identical to that of the state-of-the-art in entertainment games technology. As a result the field of serious heritage games concerns itself with recent advances in computer games, real-time computer graphics, virtual and augmented reality and artificial intelligence. On the other hand, the main strengths of serious gaming applications may be generalised as being in the areas of communication, visual expression of information, collaboration mechanisms, interactivity and entertainment. In this report, we will focus on the state-of-the-art with respect to the theories, methods and technologies used in serious heritage games. We provide an overview of existing literature of relevance to the domain, discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the described methods and point out unsolved problems and challenges. In addition, several case studies illustrating the application of methods and technologies used in cultural heritage are presented

Personalization in cultural heritage: the road travelled and the one ahead

Over the last 20 years, cultural heritage has been a favored domain for personalization research. For years, researchers have experimented with the cutting edge technology of the day; now, with the convergence of internet and wireless technology, and the increasing adoption of the Web as a platform for the publication of information, the visitor is able to exploit cultural heritage material before, during and after the visit, having different goals and requirements in each phase. However, cultural heritage sites have a huge amount of information to present, which must be filtered and personalized in order to enable the individual user to easily access it. Personalization of cultural heritage information requires a system that is able to model the user (e.g., interest, knowledge and other personal characteristics), as well as contextual aspects, select the most appropriate content, and deliver it in the most suitable way. It should be noted that achieving this result is extremely challenging in the case of first-time users, such as tourists who visit a cultural heritage site for the first time (and maybe the only time in their life). In addition, as tourism is a social activity, adapting to the individual is not enough because groups and communities have to be modeled and supported as well, taking into account their mutual interests, previous mutual experience, and requirements. How to model and represent the user(s) and the context of the visit and how to reason with regard to the information that is available are the challenges faced by researchers in personalization of cultural heritage. Notwithstanding the effort invested so far, a definite solution is far from being reached, mainly because new technology and new aspects of personalization are constantly being introduced. This article surveys the research in this area. Starting from the earlier systems, which presented cultural heritage information in kiosks, it summarizes the evolution of personalization techniques in museum web sites, virtual collections and mobile guides, until recent extension of cultural heritage toward the semantic and social web. The paper concludes with current challenges and points out areas where future research is needed

Virtual Heritage

Virtual heritage has been explained as virtual reality applied to cultural heritage, but this definition only scratches the surface of the fascinating applications, tools and challenges of this fast-changing interdisciplinary field. This book provides an accessible but concise edited coverage of the main topics, tools and issues in virtual heritage. Leading international scholars have provided chapters to explain current issues in accuracy and precision; challenges in adopting advanced animation techniques; shows how archaeological learning can be developed in Minecraft; they propose mixed reality is conceptual rather than just technical; they explore how useful Linked Open Data can be for art history; explain how accessible photogrammetry can be but also ethical and practical issues for applying at scale; provide insight into how to provide interaction in museums involving the wider public; and describe issues in evaluating virtual heritage projects not often addressed even in scholarly papers. The book will be of particular interest to students and scholars in museum studies, digital archaeology, heritage studies, architectural history and modelling, virtual environments

From Personalization to Adaptivity: Creating Immersive Visits through Interactive Digital Storytelling at the Acropolis Museum

Storytelling has recently become a popular way to guide museum visitors, replacing traditional exhibit-centric descriptions by story-centric cohesive narrations with references to the exhibits and multimedia content. This work presents the fundamental elements of the CHESS project approach, the goal of which is to provide adaptive, personalized, interactive storytelling for museum visits. We shortly present the CHESS project and its background, we detail the proposed storytelling and user models, we describe the provided functionality and we outline the main tools and mechanisms employed. Finally, we present the preliminary results of a recent evaluation study that are informing several directions for future work

From Physical to Digital, From Interactive to Immersive: Archaeological Uses of 3D, AR, VR, and More

The combination of improved methods and tools, widespread adoption, and continuously-falling barriers to entry has prompted the claim that we are currently living in a ‘golden age of digital archaeology’. This paper provides a background discussion of the use and evolution of digital methods and tools in archaeology, as well as a summary of the conference session “From Physical to Digital, from Interactive to Immersive: Uses of Three– Dimensional Representation, Mixed Reality, and More in the Sharing and Exploration of Archaeological Data,” held at the CAA 2017 conference in Atlanta

The Nora Virtual Tour: an immersive visit in the ancient city

The ancient city of Nora was a Phoenician, Punic and Roman settlement rising on a peninsula in the south-western coast of Sardinia. Since 1990, the University of Padova has been carrying on an interdisciplinary research project of excavation, architectural analysis, historical reconstruction and cultural promotion of tourism in this site. The excavations allow us to increase our knowledge of Middle Imperial Roman urban planning and to get a better understanding of the whole city and its history; the restoration of excavated monuments using gravels with different colours helps more than 60,000 tourists every year to recognize the function of different areas. In spite of this, visitors experience difficulty in understanding a landscape of ruins with barely visible evidence. Thus, a complete virtual reconstruction of the ancient city has become essential. 3D models of the Phoenician and Roman settlement have been developed, reshaping archaeological plans produced in 25 years by Universities that work in the site. The main monuments of the Roman city and the major crossroads have been rendered in greater detail, using sample-based textures that give a photorealistic effect and implementing the models with furniture and decorations selected through reliable sources of information. 3D reconstructions are now available for tourist groups led by a guide in the Nora Virtual Tour: stereoscopic images have been rendered and uploaded in an app for mobile headsets that provides immersive virtual reality for the users. The guide controls the devices with a tablet using a Bluetooth connection: at the beginning of the visit, the tourists can view equirectangular panoramas of the ruins taken from a helicopter, then they are accompanied to hot-spots where the ancient monuments are shown in an evocative Roman reconstruction

A framework study on the use of immersive XR technologies in the cultural heritage domain

Most cultural promotion and dissemination are nowadays performed through the digitization of heritage sites and museums, a necessary requirement to meet the new needs of the public. Augmented Reality (AR), Mixed Reality (MR), and Virtual Reality (VR) have the potential to improve the experience quality and educational effect of these sites by stimulating users’ senses in a more natural and vivid way. In this respect, head-mounted display (HMD) devices allow visitors to enhance the experience of cultural sites by digitizing information and integrating additional virtual cues about cultural artifacts, resulting in a more immersive experience that engages the visitor both physically and emotionally. This study contributes to the development and incorporation of AR, MR, and VR applications in the cultural heritage domain by providing an overview of relevant studies utilizing fully immersive systems, such as headsets and CAVE systems, emphasizing the advantages that they bring when compared to handheld devices. We propose a framework study to identify the key features of headset-based Extended Reality (XR) technologies used in the cultural heritage domain that boost immersion, sense of presence, and agency. Furthermore, we highlight core characteristics that favor the adoption of these systems over more traditional solutions (e.g., handheld devices), as well as unsolved issues that must be addressed to improve the guests’ experience and the appreciation of the cultural heritage. An extensive search of Google Scholar, Scopus, IEEE Xplore, ACM Digital Library, and Wiley Online Library databases was conducted, including papers published from January 2018 to September 2022. To improve review reporting, the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines were used. Sixty-five papers met the inclusion criteria and were classified depending on the study’s purpose: education, entertainment, edutainment, touristic guidance systems, accessibility, visitor profiling, and management. Immersive cultural heritage systems allow visitors to feel completely immersed and present in the virtual environment, providing a stimulating and educational cultural experience that can improve the quality and learning purposes of cultural visits. Nonetheless, the analyzed studies revealed some limitations that must be faced to give a further impulse to the adoption of these technologies in the cultural heritage domain

The integration of an augmented reality module within the Way- Cyberparks app. : the case study of Valletta city

Latest improvements on mobile devices capabilities are changing the way people interact with their surroundings. Nowadays, devices are able to sense the environment and user’s location, enabling the user to experience improved digital services. This is a key aspect of public spaces enhancement, which plays a pivotal role for the improvement of public spaces; a key to make public locations more accessible, interactive and enjoyable. One of the most powerful technologies enabling this innovative set of services is known as Augmented Reality (AR). More in depth, AR allows users to visualise in real time virtual information about the physical objects of the real world, directly on the display of their own devices. AR provides innovative way-finding widgets and context-awareness services. Along with the aims of the COST Action Cyberparks, our aim is to improve the App delivered during the first stages of the project (Way-Cyberparks) with AR functionalities, by developing a location-based AR module tailored to be integrated within Way-Cyberparks. The AR section will link virtual geo-tagged annotations as an interface to (geo) spatial and attribute data, allowing users to quick access digital sensory inputs. The overarching idea is to populate the App with virtual signage fostering the fruition of public spaces by allowing users to experience new ways of moving within specific places. Thanks to that, on one hand, the App works as an interactive path-finder tool, heading visitors towards the most interesting locations or landmarks within a specific area (Points of Interest or POIs). On the other, users are enabled to create their own contents and upload them into the network of available POIs, enabling a true participative community. The city of Valletta has been chosen as first case study; here the AR module will be tested to identify historical locations and heritage buildings, acting as contextual objects for the Way- Cyberparks App.Funded by the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme of the European Union.peer-reviewe