Semantic Web Technologies for improving remote visits of museums, using a mobile robot

International audienceThe Azkar research project focuses on the remote control of a mobile robot using the emerging Web technologies WebRTC for real time communication. One of the use cases addressed is a remote visit of the French Museum of the Great War in Meaux. For this purpose, we designed an ontology for describing the main scenes in the museum, the objects that compose them, the different trails the robot can follow in a given time period, for a targeted audience, the way points, observation points. This RDF dataset is exploited to assist the human guide in designing a trail, and possibly adapting it during the visit. In this paper we present the Azkar Museum Ontology, the RDF dataset describing some emblematic scenes of the museum, and an experiment that took place in June 2016 with a robot controlled by an operator located 800 kms from the museum. We propose to demonstrate this work during the conference by organizing a remote visit from the conference demo location

3D-mallintaminen kulttuurihistoriallisten museoiden toiminnan tukena

Tutkimus käsittelee museoesineiden 3D-mallien hyödyntämistapoja kulttuurihistoriallisissa museoissa. 3D-mallintaminen on museoalalla nousussa oleva ilmiö, joka tuo alalle uusia keinoja käsitellä kulttuuriperintöä. Tutkimuksen aineisto koostuu tieteellisistä artikkeleista, joissa esitellään 3D-mallintamista sisältäviä tutkimuksia ja projekteja. Aineiston avulla tarkastellaan kulttuurihistoriallisten museoiden tapoja hyödyntää 3D-teknologiaa museoiden eri osa-alueilla, kuten näyttelyissä, työpajoissa, kokoelmanhallinnassa ja tutkimuksessa. Tutkimuksessa tarkastellaan, miten 3D-mallintaminen tukee museoiden tehtävää ja tarkoitusta, sekä havainnollistetaan 3D-teknologian runsaita mahdollisuuksia museokentällä. 3D-teknologian sisällyttäminen museoihin lisää museokävijöiden kiinnostusta näyttelyiden teemoihin, eikä hyvin toteutettu 3D-teknologia vähennä fyysisten kokoelmien arvoa. 3D-teknologia tukee fyysisiä kokoelmia, ja auttaa turvaamaan arvokkaan kulttuuriperinnön säilymistä, jos kokoelmia tai yksittäisiä esineitä kohtaisi onnettomuus tai ajan myötä tapahtuva tuhoutuminen. 3D-mallintamalla voi lisätä esimerkiksi koskettamisen mahdollisuutta museoissa, mikä parantaa saavutettavuutta erityisesti näkövammaisten kohdalla. 3D-mallien lisäämisen museoihin tulee kuitenkin olla harkittua, sillä mikä tahansa ratkaisu ei tee museosta saavutettavaa. 3D-teknologia voi myös luoda teknologiakuiluja eri kohderyhmien välille, varsinkin jos toteutus on monimutkaisesti käytettävissä. Aineiston perusteella museokävijät vaikuttavat suosivan varsinkin interaktiivisuutta sisältäviä 3D-teknologian toteutuksia, kuten lisättyä todellisuutta ja mahdollisuutta koskea 3D-tulosteisiin. 3D-teknologian sisällyttäminen osaksi museoiden arkipäivää auttaa museoita toteuttamaan tehtäväänsä nykyaikaisten standardien mukaisesti, edistäen varsinkin saavutettavuutta, tutkimusta, tiedon saatavuutta ja kulttuuriperinnön säilyttämistä

Modelo multissensorial desenvolvido por tecnologias 3d para o auxílio na percepção da forma de peças museológicas por pessoas com deficiência visual

O uso de tecnologias 3D aliadas ao design oferece novas oportunidades para o campo da tecnologia assistiva. Em museus, há um grande potencial para o desenvolvimento de réplicas táteis que visem, principalmente, incluir o público com deficiência visual. Porém, são escassos os estudos de sistemas multissensoriais aplicados nessas réplicas, por exemplo, combinando tato e audição. Nesse contexto, essa pesquisa tem por objetivo o desenvolvimento e a avaliação de um sistema multissensorial, desenvolvido por tecnologias 3D, para o auxílio a pessoas com deficiência visual na percepção da forma de peças museológicas. Para tanto, o estudo foi conduzido junto ao Museu de Porto Alegre, tendo início com a digitalização 3D de uma peça do acervo e sua respectiva conversão em um modelo virtual, o qual foi posteriormente impresso em 3D. Em paralelo, a fim de possibilitar a interação entre a réplica tátil e o usuário, foi selecionado um sensor de toque capacitivo como o responsável pelo feedback de áudio, bem como foi desenvolvida a programação do sistema. Em meio a isso, desenvolveu-se uma tinta condutora para atuar como o sensor de toque capacitivo supracitado, a qual foi aplicada em regiões selecionadas para serem descritas aos usuários. Assim que o sistema foi montado junto ao modelo finalizado, o roteiro das audiodescrições foi escrito, gravado e incluído no sistema. Por fim, o modelo multissensorial foi avaliado por meio de um teste piloto e, posteriormente, foi realizada uma consultoria de audiodescrição junto a um profissional com deficiência visual, no intuito de otimizar as audiodescrições, bem como colocar o modelo multissensorial à prova, visando observar o desempenho, pontos positivos e negativos. Como resultado, o sistema tornou-se autossuficiente e o usuário livre para utilizar o sistema de múltiplas formas, seja seguindo as orientações sugeridas, seja explorando-o conforme desejado, bem como retomando informações que queira ouvir novamente. Assim, os resultados indicam que o sistema desenvolvido é eficiente quanto ao auxílio na percepção da forma por uma pessoa com deficiência visual e já poderia ser implementado em um museu para promover a acessibilidade.The application of 3D technology in design brings in new opportunities to the field of assistive technology. In museums, there is vast potential in the development of tactile replicas with the goal to include visually impaired people. However, there is a significant lack of research approaching multi-sensory systems applied in these replicas combining touch and hearing, for example. In this context, this paper intends to both elaborate and assess a multi-sensory system, developed with the use of 3D technology, for the assistance of people with visual deficiency in the perception of museum exhibits. For this purpose, this study was carried out closely with the Museum of Porto Alegre, beginning from the 3D digitization of an exhibit and its conversion to a virtual model, which was afterward printed in 3D. Simultaneously, in order to enable the interaction between the tactile replica and the user, a capacitive touch sensor was set to be responsible for the audio feedback, and the system programming was also consolidated. A conductive paint was conceived to act as the touch capacitive sensor mentioned above, which was applied in previously selected regions to be described to the users. Once the system was assembled together with the finalized model, the script for the audio descriptions was written, recorded and incorporated into the system. Lastly, the multi-sensory model was assessed by means of a trial, and then a visually impaired professional was consulted on the audio description, with the purpose of optimizing the audio descriptions as well as to put the multi-sensory model to the test, aiming to analyze its performance. As a result, the system could be declared self sufficient, and the user was able to operate the system in multiple ways, whether following the instructions suggested, or exploring it as desired, as well as to revisit information if they perchance wanted to listen again. Thus, the results indicate that the developed system is efficient in regards to aiding the perception of shape to a person with visual deficiency and could already be implemented in a museum so as to amplify the accessibility

Intuitive Robot Teleoperation Based on Haptic Feedback and 3D Visualization

Robots are required in many jobs. The jobs related to tele-operation may be very challenging and often require reaching a destination quickly and with minimum collisions. In order to succeed in these jobs, human operators are asked to tele-operate a robot manually through a user interface. The design of a user interface and of the information provided in it, become therefore critical elements for the successful completion of robot tele-operation tasks. Effective and timely robot tele-navigation mainly relies on the intuitiveness provided by the interface and on the richness and presentation of the feedback given. This project investigated the use of both haptic and visual feedbacks in a user interface for robot tele-navigation. The aim was to overcome some of the limitations observed in a state of the art works, turning what is sometimes described as contrasting into an added value to improve tele-navigation performance. The key issue is to combine different human sensory modalities in a coherent way and to benefit from 3-D vision too. The proposed new approach was inspired by how visually impaired people use walking sticks to navigate. Haptic feedback may provide helpful input to a user to comprehend distances to surrounding obstacles and information about the obstacle distribution. This was proposed to be achieved entirely relying on on-board range sensors, and by processing this input through a simple scheme that regulates magnitude and direction of the environmental force-feedback provided to the haptic device. A specific algorithm was also used to render the distribution of very close objects to provide appropriate touch sensations. Scene visualization was provided by the system and it was shown to a user coherently to haptic sensation. Different visualization configurations, from multi-viewpoint observation to 3-D visualization, were proposed and rigorously assessed through experimentations, to understand the advantages of the proposed approach and performance variations among different 3-D display technologies. Over twenty users were invited to participate in a usability study composed by two major experiments. The first experiment focused on a comparison between the proposed haptic-feedback strategy and a typical state of the art approach. It included testing with a multi-viewpoint visual observation. The second experiment investigated the performance of the proposed haptic-feedback strategy when combined with three different stereoscopic-3D visualization technologies. The results from the experiments were encouraging and showed good performance with the proposed approach and an improvement over literature approaches to haptic feedback in robot tele-operation. It was also demonstrated that 3-D visualization can be beneficial for robot tele-navigation and it will not contrast with haptic feedback if it is properly aligned to it. Performance may vary with different 3-D visualization technologies, which is also discussed in the presented work

Virtual reality tourism : the new frontier or the end of the journey?

Prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, the tourism industry was a mega-industry. Although virtual reality (VR) is a relatively new development in tourism, due to COVID-19 it has literally transformed and improved the industry, particularly in the fields of marketing, sustainability and virtual worlds. VR is held to provide tourists with the “ultimate” tourist experience. The reason is that tourists no longer have to experience any of the negative aspects associated with conventional tourism. Despite the benefits and popularity of VR, a key question arises: will VR be the end of conventional tourism or can it be considered as a new tourism frontier? Therefore, the main purpose of the study is to address this question by focusing on the role of VR in tourism, especially in the context of South Africa. In addition, the study provides a detailed background of VR in general and in terms of tourism; types of VR tourism; the benefits and drawbacks of VR in tourism; and finally, the study compares conventional tourism models with VR in order to highlight the similarities. It concludes that VR does not in essence substitute conventional tourism, but rather it can be considered as a tourism niche in its own right, even if only as a futuristic prospect. For this to actualise, there are three major concerns that need to be addressed in the future; physical interaction; a full sensorial experience and the question of revenue.Thesis (PhD (Heritage and Cultural Tourism))--University of Pretoria, 2021.Post grad UP fundingHistorical and Heritage StudiesPhD (Heritage and Cultural Tourism)Unrestricte