Recreating the Amoeba Violin Using Physical Modeling and Augmented Reality

The Amoeba violin is a bowed string instrument present at the Danish Music Museum in Copenhagen. The instrument is not played anymore due to its unpleasant sonorities and uncomfortable shape. In this paper we recreate the Amoeba violin using extended reality technologies and sound synthesis by physical models. We design and evaluate two applications that can be used either at the museum (augmented reality version) or at home (desktop version) to learn about the history of the instrument and its sonorities. The app was created for the Danish Music Museum, Musikmuseet, located in Copenhagen, in response to the demand for reduced contact of shared surfaces and official calls to stay indoors that followed the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020. User testing on both versions shows that they both are considered easy-to-access and educative, however the AR version was more favoured overall