Collaborative Virtual Environments (CVEs) were designed as an expansion of the text-based chat room, rather than a novel application, exploiting the possibilities of online three dimensional graphical space. This initial design direction is observable at the interface level. We put forward the case that to achieve an efficient CVE system, one will have to design and implement a multi modal User Interface based on expressive Avatars as a representation of the different participants, also as an embodiment of software agents. We emphasise the expressiveness of the avatar as a crucial improvement to the efficiency of their communication capabilities, and we describe a vocabulary of expressions to be implemented. We put forward the case that to be more efficient, particularly during a dialogue, an avatar is required to play a role in the communication using nonverbal channels such as body postures, facial expressions and hand gestures. We also suggest conversation circles to facilitate the gathering of participants in a discussion. These circles will address navigation difficulties in CVEs and encourage social exchanges.
The cry ‘what to do with the Crystal Palace’ continues to reverberate long after the Palace’s fiery demise. Whilst local heritage groups continue to cherish it, its memory has been jeopardised by authorities, both bureaucratic (who have failed to implement a coherent conservation plan for the site) and academic (who have largely refused to engage with building or exhibition). The result, the mental dismantling of the Sydenham Palace from nineteenth-century histories, has been explained by scholarly aversion to reconstruction/inauthenticity and play/populist entertainment, the very aspects which defined it. This chapter explore a small part of the Palace, the Pompeian Court, through our own digital visualisation, housed in Second Life, a popular multi-user online virtual world. By choosing such a venue, we have favoured the pursuit not of absolute authenticity but of virtual presence, offering a space in which visitors to the model, through their avatars, might circulate the space, interact with each other and the exhibits.
This JISC funded project involves building a virtual 3D model in Second Life, a multiuser online world, of the Pompeian Court, a life-size model of a Pompeian house built in the Crystal Palace in 1854. We wish to examine how the social and educational experiences and reconstructive possibilities offered by the virtual environment compare with those of the original Court. By examining these themes with reference to the archival material of the Palace and preliminary evaluation of our model with user groups in the education and heritage sectors, we aim to reassess the potential of visualisations of the past.
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