A comparison of immersive realities and interaction methods: cultural learning in virtual heritage

In recent years, Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Virtuality (AV), and Mixed Reality (MxR) have become popular immersive reality technologies for cultural knowledge dissemination in Virtual Heritage (VH). These technologies have been utilized for enriching museums with a personalized visiting experience and digital content tailored to the historical and cultural context of the museums and heritage sites. Various interaction methods, such as sensor-based, device-based, tangible, collaborative, multimodal, and hybrid interaction methods, have also been employed by these immersive reality technologies to enable interaction with the virtual environments. However, the utilization of these technologies and interaction methods isn’t often supported by a guideline that can assist Cultural Heritage Professionals (CHP) to predetermine their relevance to attain the intended objectives of the VH applications. In this regard, our paper attempts to compare the existing immersive reality technologies and interaction methods against their potential to enhance cultural learning in VH applications. To objectify the comparison, three factors have been borrowed from existing scholarly arguments in the Cultural Heritage (CH) domain. These factors are the technology’s or the interaction method’s potential and/or demonstrated capability to: (1) establish a contextual relationship between users, virtual content, and cultural context, (2) allow collaboration between users, and (3) enable engagement with the cultural context in the virtual environments and the virtual environment itself. Following the comparison, we have also proposed a specific integration of collaborative and multimodal interaction methods into a Mixed Reality (MxR) scenario that can be applied to VH applications that aim at enhancing cultural learning in situ

Virtual Heritage at iGrid 2000

As part of the iGrid Research Demonstration at INET 2000, we created two Virtual Cultural Heritage environments - "Virtual Harlem" and "Shared Miletus". The purpose of these applications was to explore possibilities in using the combination of high-speed international networks and virtual reality (VR) displays for cultural heritage education. Our ultimate goal is to enable the construction of tele-immersive museums and classes. In this paper we present an overview of the infrastructure used for these applications, and some details of their construction.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures, INET 2001 (Stockholm, Sweden, 5-8 June 2001

Educational Virtual Reality Visualisations of Heritage Sites.

This paper discusses the use of games engines to create virtual heritage applications. The use of 3D software for cultural or heritage applications is discussed with reference to the capabilities and potential of games engines. The contribution of students from Bournemouth University to the New Forest Heritage Mapping project through the creation of interactive virtual reality visualisations of historic landscapes is described. The creation and evaluation of three different applications representing three alternative interaction styles are discussed. The first does not indicate where information can be found, the second uses visible cues and the third implements an objective marker system

Virtual Reality-Based Experiential Model for Lost Historic Buildings

Historic buildings have always been facing severe threats of destruction. Historic buildings are the physical links to our past, and help in forming and imprinting a cultural memory within us. However, when a building gets totally destroyed, the resources available to learn about the past are very limited. The archaeological relics, photographs, sketches, textural records, etc. fail to create a complete picture of the lost structure in our mind due to their unorganized nature and lack of possibility to explore in and around the building. Virtual reality (VR) is an interactive technology that allows people to virtually walk inside built environments using digital tools, and enables us to experience them on a human scale. Virtual heritage (VH) applications have been a popular research area among the Architects, Archaeologists and Historians for more than two decades. Virtual heritage projects, excluding projects developed in the entertainment industry, are predominantly developed by researchers and academicians. These virtual heritage projects mainly focus on either the ‘Process’ (3D reconstruction mechanism) or the ‘Products’ (Virtual Reality systems) but do not consider the end-users, i.e. the ‘People’ going to use the system. Humans are cultural organisms and their cultural and demographical aspects differ from each other and hence the cultural interpretation, perception and reaction are subjective. Different cultural environment poses different meanings to different people. Hence, it is crucial to identify what end-users’ interests are in a virtual heritage environment in order to effectively educate about the past. This research attempts to investigate the experiences of users when a first-person Virtual Reality-based model of a lost building is presented to the visitors of the museum. the entertainment industry, are predominantly developed by researchers and academicians. These virtual heritage projects mainly focus on either the ‘Process’ (3D reconstruction mechanism) or the ‘Products’ (Virtual Reality systems) but do not consider the end-users, i.e. the ‘People’ going to use it. Humans are cultural organisms and their cultural and demographical aspects differ from each other and hence the cultural interpretation, perception and reaction are subjective. Different cultural environment poses different meanings to different people. Hence, it is crucial to identify what end-users’ interests are in a virtual heritage environment in order to effectively educate about the past. This research attempts to investigate the experiences of users when a first-person Virtual Reality-based model of a lost building is presented to the visitors of the museum

Actors in VR storytelling

Virtual Reality (VR) storytelling enhances the immersion of users into virtual environments (VE). Its use in virtual cultural heritage presentations helps the revival of the genius loci (the spirit of the place) of cultural monuments. This paper aims to show that the use of actors in VR storytelling adds to the quality of user experience and improves the edutainment value of virtual cultural heritage applications. We will describe the Baiae dry visit application which takes us to a time travel in the city considered by the Roman elite as "Little Rome (Pusilla Roma)" and presently is only partially preserved under the sea.Comment: Pre-print versio

In-Situ Visualization for Cultural Heritage Sites using Novel Augmented Reality Technologies

[ES] Mobile Augmented Reality is an ideal technology for presenting information in an attractive, comprehensive and personalized way to visitors of cultural heritage sites. One of the pioneer projects in this area was certainly the European project ArcheoGuide (IST-1999-11306) which developed and evaluated Augmented Reality (AR) at a very early stage. Many progresses have been done since then, and novel devices and algorithms offer novel possibilities and functionalities. In this paper we present current research work and discuss different approaches of Mobile AR for cultural heritage. Since this area is very large we focus on the visual aspects of such technologies, namely tracking and computer vision, as well as visualization.The work discussed in this article was supported by the European Union IST framework (IST 1999-11306) project ArcheoGuide and is continued in the current project iTACITUS (IST 2.5.10 – 034520).Stricker, D.; Pagani, A.; Zoellner, M. (2010). In-Situ Visualization for Cultural Heritage Sites using Novel Augmented Reality Technologies. Virtual Archaeology Review. 1(2):37-41. https://doi.org/10.4995/var.2010.4682OJS374112LEPETIT V., LAGGER P., FUA P.: Randomized trees for real-time keypoint recognition. Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition 2 (2005), 775-781. http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/cvpr.2005.288VLAHAKIS, Vassilios; IOaNNIDIS, Nikos; KARIGIANNIS, John; TSOTROS, Manolis; GOUNARIS, Michael; STRICKER, Didier;GLEUE, Tim; DAEHNE, Patrick; ALMEIDA, Luis Archeoguide: Challenges and Solutions of a Personalized Augmented Reality Guide for archaeological sites IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications 22 (2002), 5, pp. 52-60STRICKER, Didier Tracking with Reference Images: A Real-Time and Markerless Tracking Solution for Out-Door Augmented Reality Applications International Symposium on Virtual Reality, Archaeology and Cultural Heritage (VAST), Glyfada, Greece, 2001, pp. 91-96.ZOELLNER, Michael, PAGANI Alain, STRICKER, Didier: "Reality filtering: A visual time machine in augmented reality", in VAST 2008. Proceedings (December).ITACITUS, 2008. "Intelligent tourism and cultural information through ubiquitous services." http://www.itacitus.org.FISCHER, J. 2005. Stylized augmented reality for improved immersion. Proceedings of IEEE Virtual Reality, 195-202. http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/vr.2005.1492774http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/vr.2005.7

smart paths for advanced management of cultural heritage

Internet and mobile communication has transformed the manner of conventionally interacting with cultural heritage, creating dynamic networks for all those involved. It provides opportunities to experiment with innovative mobile applications that, valorizing historical and environmental resources, complement the broader context of smart cities/regions. This paper aims to study an advanced virtual on-site fruition of cultural heritage by users–consumers, applied in the region of Sardinia, through the simulation of computer-based relational augmented reality (AR) applications. This case study, which is a unique regional attempt at promoting regional cultural heritage using AR technologies, is interesting because of its tourist offerings that today remain fragmented

The Herbert Virtual Museum

In recent years, virtual reality and augmented reality have emerged as areas of extreme interest as unique methods for visualising and interacting with digital museum artefacts in a different context, for example, as a virtual museum or exhibition, particularly over the Internet. Modern cultural heritage exhibitions have evolved from static to dynamic exhibitions and challenging explorations. This paper presents two different applications developed for the Herbert Museum and Art Gallery that make the user's experience more immersive, engaging, and interactive. The first application utilizes mobile phone devices in order to enrich the visitors experience in the museum, and the second application is a serious game for cultural heritage and in particular for museum environments focusing on the younger visitors

VIRTUAL TOUR CAGAR BUDAYA TAMANSARI DENGAN MENGGUNAKAN METODE AUGMENTED REALITY GUNA MENDUKUNG YOGYAKARTA SEBAGAI HERITAGE CITIES

Currently one of the emerging technologies that Augmented Reality (AR). Augmented Reality is a merger between the virtual objects with real objects. The merger between the virtual objects with real objects will provide information faster and more towards an object. Merging AR technology with telecommunications devices are very helpful in processing a virtual application. Promotion of travel by using AR technology is particularly suited to promote a tourist location whose territory is quite vast, but one example of cultural heritage Tamansari. AR technology with software Autodeks 3DS Max and Unity3D can be used to build applications Taman Sari virtual system to form a three-dimensional (3D). The results of this study useful for users who want to know more details about the cultural heritage Tamansari. This application allows the user to get to know the parts of the building and the location at Taman Sari and easier for people to find artifacts and browse through search Taman Sari Water Castle location-shaped virtual 3D animation

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