Digital Heritage Gamification: An Augmented-Virtual Walkthrough to Learn and Explore Tangible Cultural Heritage

In the last decade, cultural heritage including historical sites are reconstructed into digital heritage. Based on UNESCO , digital heritage defines as “cultural, educational, scientific and administrative resources, as well as technical, legal, medical and other kinds of information created digitally, or converted into digital form from existing analogue resources”. In addition, the digital heritage is doubling in size every two years and expected will grow tenfold between 2013 and 2020. In order to attract and stir the interest of younger generations about digital heritage, gamification has been widely promoted. In this research, a virtual walkthrough combine with gamifications are proposed for learning and exploring historical places in Malaysia by using mobile device. In conjunction with Visit Perak 2017 Campaign, this virtual walkthrough is proposed for Kellie’s Castle at Perak. The objectives of this research are two folds 1) modelling and design of innovative mobile game for virtual walkthrough application, and 2) to attract tourist to explore and learn historical places by using sophisticated graphics from Augmented Reality. The efficiency and effectiveness of the mobile virtual walkthrough will be accessed by the International and local tourists. In conclusion, this research is speculated to be pervasively improve the cultural and historical knowledge of the learners

Online Virtual Malaysia Walkthrough (MAWA) (experience the culture)

Five years ago some of us became familiar with the term 'virtual reality' by reading in computer magazines that soon one will be able to visit cultural heritage sites using a computer. Today, some of the websites display three dimensional (3D) models of objects, buildings and sites so that one can visualise these models from any angle by rotating them on the computer screen. This visualisation is improving and will soon allow the 'virtual visit' of a site, of heritage buildings and of objects surrounding them. This improvement has introduced the term 'virtual tourism' thus providing new tools for heritage site interpretation and presentation, and for sustainable tourism. Online Virtual Malaysia Walkthrough or MAWA is an application that takes Malaysia to the world. Virtual is a representative word for digital or cyber world. MAWA promotes Malaysia in virtual form to attract tourists all over the world to know how Malaysia looks from a far. The tag line is experience the culture. This project would also allow exploring the uses of virtual reality to improve the presentation and interpretation of cultural sites and to extend the carrying capacity of heavily visited sites. The targeted market is the foreign tourists, and the strategy is to attract at least 1% of the total forecasted tourist who will need to pay an access fee of USD20 per entry

Multiuser interaction with hybrid VR and AR for cultural heritage objects

This research investigates the factors and ways in which users initiate conversations and engage in interactions in a hybrid virtual environment using a combination of Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) devices. The research was done in the ‘spirit of the ancient Silk Road’ where trade brought in exchange of ideas, cultural influence and cross-border communications. The notion of a 21st century Silk Road is necessarily digital, over the Internet and based around 3D cultural heritage objects. Digi-Capital’s Report forecasts the revenue of AR and VR to be US$150b by 2020. We projected that VR and AR will become pervasive, much like the Social Web and the universal ubiquity of mobile devices such as smartphones and wearables. Here, we conducted a user study exploring users’ acceptance of the use of hybrid VR and AR for cultural heritage, and investigated the social nature of multiple co-located user interaction. We adapted the UTAUT questionnaire in our experiment and found that social influence has positive effects on performance expectancy and effort expectancy, which generate positive effects on user behavioural intention. This study pioneers the future design and use of hybrid VR and AR technology in cultural heritage specifically, and in other application areas generally by highlighting the significant role that social influence plays in enhancing users’ behavioural intention facilitated by different immersive devices

Multiuser interaction with hybrid VR and AR for cultural heritage objects

This research investigates the factors and ways in which users initiate conversations and engage in interactions in a hybrid virtual environment using a combination of Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) devices. The research was done in the ‘spirit of the ancient Silk Road’ where trade brought in exchange of ideas, cultural influence and cross-border communications. The notion of a 21st century Silk Road is necessarily digital, over the Internet and based around 3D cultural heritage objects. Digi-Capital’s Report forecasts the revenue of AR and VR to be US$150b by 2020. We projected that VR and AR will become pervasive, much like the Social Web and the universal ubiquity of mobile devices such as smartphones and wearables. Here, we conducted a user study exploring users’ acceptance of the use of hybrid VR and AR for cultural heritage, and investigated the social nature of multiple co-located user interaction. We adapted the UTAUT questionnaire in our experiment and found that social influence has positive effects on performance expectancy and effort expectancy, which generate positive effects on user behavioural intention. This study pioneers the future design and use of hybrid VR and AR technology in cultural heritage specifically, and in other application areas generally by highlighting the significant role that social influence plays in enhancing users’ behavioural intention facilitated by different immersive devices

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

Exploring heritage through time and space : Supporting community reflection on the highland clearances

On the two hundredth anniversary of the Kildonan clearances, when people were forcibly removed from their homes, the Timespan Heritage centre has created a program of community centred work aimed at challenging pre conceptions and encouraging reflection on this important historical process. This paper explores the innovative ways in which virtual world technology has facilitated community engagement, enhanced visualisation and encouraged reflection as part of this program. An installation where users navigate through a reconstruction of pre clearance Caen township is controlled through natural gestures and presented on a 300 inch six megapixel screen. This environment allows users to experience the past in new ways. The platform has value as an effective way for an educator, artist or hobbyist to create large scale virtual environments using off the shelf hardware and open source software. The result is an exhibit that also serves as a platform for experimentation into innovative ways of community co-creation and co-curation.Postprin

Teaching Cultural Heritage using Mobile Augmented Reality

open2noThe relationship between augmented reality, mobile learning, gamification and non-formal education methods provide a great potential. The AR-CIMUVE Augmented Reality for the Walled Cities of the Veneto is an original project in collaboration with Italia Nostra and other associations which deal with transmitting our cultural heritage and which teach primary and middle school children the cultural and historical importance of the Veneto’s and the surrounding territories’ walled cities. In this learning experience students will explore how our environment has developed across the ages using the mobile devices with the technical back-up of the AR App. This will allow them to see maps, examine data, 3D models and will enable them to judge and improve their skills. From a pedagogical and educational point of view the emphasis is on a constructivist social-cultural approach which helps students to become active citizens more aware of their historical identity.openPetrucco, Corrado; Agostini, DanielePetrucco, Corrado; Agostini, Daniel

Comparison of engagement and emotional responses of older and younger adults interacting with 3D cultural heritage artefacts on personal devices

The availability of advanced software and less expensive hardware allows museums to preserve and share artefacts digitally. As a result, museums are frequently making their collections accessible online as interactive, 3D models. This could lead to the unique situation of viewing the digital artefact before the physical artefact. Experiencing artefacts digitally outside of the museum on personal devices may affect the user's ability to emotionally connect to the artefacts. This study examines how two target populations of young adults (18–21 years) and the elderly (65 years and older) responded to seeing cultural heritage artefacts in three different modalities: augmented reality on a tablet, 3D models on a laptop, and then physical artefacts. Specifically, the time spent, enjoyment, and emotional responses were analysed. Results revealed that regardless of age, the digital modalities were enjoyable and encouraged emotional responses. Seeing the physical artefacts after the digital ones did not lessen their enjoyment or emotions felt. These findings aim to provide an insight into the effectiveness of 3D artefacts viewed on personal devices and artefacts shown outside of the museum for encouraging emotional responses from older and younger people

Virtual Exploration of Underwater Archaeological Sites : Visualization and Interaction in Mixed Reality Environments

This paper describes the ongoing developments in Photogrammetry and Mixed Reality for the Venus European project (Virtual ExploratioN of Underwater Sites, http://www.venus-project.eu). The main goal of the project is to provide archaeologists and the general public with virtual and augmented reality tools for exploring and studying deep underwater archaeological sites out of reach of divers. These sites have to be reconstructed in terms of environment (seabed) and content (artifacts) by performing bathymetric and photogrammetric surveys on the real site and matching points between geolocalized pictures. The base idea behind using Mixed Reality techniques is to offer archaeologists and general public new insights on the reconstructed archaeological sites allowing archaeologists to study directly from within the virtual site and allowing the general public to immersively explore a realistic reconstruction of the sites. Both activities are based on the same VR engine but drastically differ in the way they present information. General public activities emphasize the visually and auditory realistic aspect of the reconstruction while archaeologists activities emphasize functional aspects focused on the cargo study rather than realism which leads to the development of two parallel VR demonstrators. This paper will focus on several key points developed for the reconstruction process as well as both VR demonstrators (archaeological and general public) issues. The ?rst developed key point concerns the densi?cation of seabed points obtained through photogrammetry in order to obtain high quality terrain reproduction. The second point concerns the development of the Virtual and Augmented Reality (VR/AR) demonstrators for archaeologists designed to exploit the results of the photogrammetric reconstruction. And the third point concerns the development of the VR demonstrator for general public aimed at creating awareness of both the artifacts that were found and of the process with which they were discovered by recreating the dive process from ship to seabed