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