Combining digital reconstruction with mobile technologies has the potential of enriching visitors experience to historic sites. Through designing a mobile App with Google Cardboard it is possible to use technology already in peoples' pockets to provide immersive on-site exploration of historic sites. This paper looks at our experience in developing such a mobile App which acts as a digital guided tour of the remains of St Andrews Cathedral. The App brings together traditional media such as audio, images, panoramas, 3D video and 4π Steradian (or 360°) video with a mobile smartphone and Google Cardboard to provide a tour of one of Scotland's most important historic sites. The mobile App is available from both Google Play and iTunes, providing direct delivery to a potential audience of millions. It complements the location-aware mediaeval St Andrews App, which provides a guided tour to the town of St Andrews as a whole. In the absence of Google Cardboard the App is still useful providing both visual content and audio commentary on this historic monument.
These include showcasing the model at the Helmsdale Highland Games where visitors could explore the township of the past on stereo head mounted displays, or a Virtual Museum website that welcomes visitors from around the globe, as well as using Google Cardboard to allow visitors to explore Caen today, the virtual reconstruction of Caen simultaneously whilst on the site.
Abstract. Museums publicly display collections in a physical space to relay narratives and concepts to their audiences. Progressive technologies in an exhibition can bring in varying demographics and gather higher footfall for a museum as well as present digital heritage interpretation in an innovative manner. A mixed media exhibition can facilitate subjects with limited physical resources or difficult to display pieces as well as the visual landscape the objects were found within. A combination of Virtual Reality headsets, 3D digitized objects, digitally reconstructed archaeological sites alongside traditional object displays as methods of interpretation substantiate research in techniques and usability as well as challenges of recoup cost and digital literacies. This paper investigates the methodology, technology and evaluation of the mixed media exhibition
Abstract. This paper investigates the use of Virtual Reality (VR) as a tool for cultural heritage learning, using St Andrews Cathedral as the subject matter. As part of a module focused on local history, first year secondary school pupils in a school in the town of St Andrews took part in virtual tours of the Cathedral as it stood in the 14 th Century using the Samsung Gear VR, Google Cardboard, Oculus Rift, computer screen and Xbox controller, and answered questions aimed to elicit their experiences with the various systems. The system design and implementation is presented and the findings, observations and lessons learnt from the study are discussed.
Abstract. This work discusses the methodology for the design, development and deployment of a virtual 19 th -century Fish Curing Yard as an immersive museum installation. The museum building now occupies the same space where the curing yard was over 100 years prior, hence the deployment of a virtual reconstruction of the curing yard in a game engine enables the museum visitors to explore the virtual world from equivalent vantage points in the real world. The project methodology achieves the goal of maximising user experience for visitors while minimising cost for the museum, and focus group evaluations of the system revealed the success of the interaction-free design with snackable content. A major implication of the findings is that museums can provide compelling and informative experiences that enable visitors to travel back in time with minimal interaction and relatively low cost systems.
In this article, we investigate the positive impact recent developments in digital technologies have on the relations between museums, their collections and the communities they serve. Our work indicates that sustainable benefit is produced with the use of existing digital literacies and infrastructures. We have analysed and evaluated the potential of emergent 3D and spherical technologies on the relationships between community and museum, participation in the formation of heritage, the ‘visit’ to the museum, and connection with remote audiences. The evaluation arises from our long term experience in working with community museums and through a series of workshops developed for the project entitled ‘Museums and Community: Concepts, experiences, and sustainability in Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean’ (EU‐LAC‐MUSEUMS). Firstly, we contextualise the work presented by examining community museums, trends in emergent technologies and the advancements in digital heritage. Secondly, we analyse the methodologies used to design and execute the elements of the workshops, along with assessing case studies to demonstrate distinctive experiences and outcomes particular to each workshop. We also describe how we constructed and implemented a novel design for a cost effective Virtual Museum Infrastructure (VMI), which makes it simpler for communities to create a virtual museum and connect it with global museum networks. Our aim is to communicate our findings in relation to methodologies, workflows and technologies that will be of value in understanding how to overcome the challenges emergent technologies present but yet have the potential to strengthen both community and museum.
Developments in digital infrastructures and expanding digital literacies lower barriers for museums and visitor centres to provide new interactive experiences with their collections and heritage. With virtual reality more accessible, heritage institutions are eager to find out how this technology can create new methods in interpretation, learning and visualisation. This paper reviews virtual reality exhibits that were built and displayed in cultural heritage centres. By taking advantage of existing visitor digital literacies, the exhibits provided accessible immersive exploratory experiences for inter-generational audiences. The digital framework developed is a template for virtual reality content interaction that is both intuitive and powerful. The exhibits include digital reconstructions of a physical scenes using game engines for a convincing visual experience. We contextualise the logic behind a virtual reality setup for the separate institutions, how they assisted with the narrative as well as if an immersive digital environment provided a more profound response in users. Our aim is to communicate approaches, workflows and content used to overcome the challenge of presenting a period in history to a modern audience, while using emergent technology to build connections and disseminate knowledge that is memorable and profound.
Saint Andrews is a town with a rich history. It was the religious centre of Scotland for close to a millennium. The Cathedral was strongly associated with the wars of Independence and Robert the Bruce. The castle was the scene of pivotal revolt leading to the reformation and hosted the first Scottish protestant congregation. St Salvators chapel was the religious centre of Scotland's first University. This paper presents work which explores using mobile technologies to support investigation, learning and appreciation of the past. It builds on tradition and world class scholarship into the history of this important town and makes them available to school students, researchers and tourists using mobile technologies. From text based quests, through mobile apps to location aware stereoscopic 3D experiences the gamut of available commodity hardware is used to enable the past to be explored in new ways.
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